The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Just perfect...

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's 1986. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his young daughter Rose (Camilla Belle) live in blissful isolation on a former island commune off the east coast. They defend ferociously the local wetland against land developer neighbor Marty Rance (Beau Bridges). He invites Kathleen (Catherine Keener) to live with them and she brings along her sons, Rodney (Ryan McDonald) and Thaddius (Paul Dano). Rose is immediately jealous and tries unsuccessfully to seduce Rodney. Red Berry (Jena Malone) arrives bringing candy for Rodney and sex for Thaddius.The opening act confused me with a seemingly disturbing Jack and Rose relationship. It doesn't help that Rose acts like a jealous lover. It turns into an interesting sexual coming-of-age story for Rose as she tries to seduce the new men in her life. Then the last act leaves Jack and Rose back as a weird awkward couple. It's slightly off-putting. The whole movie is filled with interesting performers and slightly off-putting. It's not fulfilling but it does have some interesting bits and pieces.

Good actors and good acting were not enough to save this movie.The Fathers intentions to become an anarchist hippy and enter a family into it; his intentions to remove his daughter from school at the age of 11 and try to teach her what HE thought were important tools for life for her; his intentions to keep her isolated from wicked society to the point where she was socially and morally stunted; his intentions of springing a nearly moral-free girlfriend and her two boys upon her (when she wasn't even aware that he had one)not because he loved the woman but because he needed someone who'd take care of his daughter when he died (he was ill), were all good intentions. Unfortunately, they just were never effective and sound intentions.His expectations upon his young daughter were unrealistic and it forced her into taking negative actions/reactions, because she was so socially inept from isolation, and not nearly equipped to handle a situation of three complete strangers moving into their quiet and peaceful existence. They meet for the first time when she's moving in with her sons - I guess it never occurred to the woman either that more sound and moral steps should be taken?? Then to hop in the sack with each other nearly immediately after showing up, and when the kids were present, really showed the audience just how self-centered these two characters really were.They show that he doesn't even love the woman right when her character is introduced when he meets her at her place in town. He doesn't even say hello, yet he just grabs her and 'does his business on her'. Thankfully, he does offer a tad bit of conversation to her afterward. The second sign that shows the real status of this relationship is when he pays her a fat check to move in with him - and she accepted it!! I think it was quite apparent that she would've shacked up with him for free. The third sign, is when she tries to get an idea if he truly wants her there and if he's in love with her - and by his responses it's pretty clear that he likes her, he likes the act of sex, but he is in no way in love with her. Yes, of course, this woman with a high self esteem and moral base still moves in with him. Smart move, Mama.Then comes a barrage of issues after they move in. The real emotionally stunted and badly behaved children in this film are the two legal adults - Jack and the shack-me-up girlfriend. It's appalling how surprised and shocked they are when the kids start acting out. Duuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........................OK, so situations are rectified, and lessons are FINALLY LEARNED, and he gives her a check for $15,000 to move out, but she wants $20,000 - fine. All is right with the world again. THEN!!! to make this snoooore of a movie even over-the-top worse, they just HAD to add a touch of incest between the Father and daughter, AND (wait, there is more!)to add salt to the wound, they even made it RECIPROCAL. Good job, fellas. Kudos. Yer terrific. The cake already fell. Please, don't bother to try to frost it at this late date. Just throw it in the trash (which is where this movie belongs).Don't waste your time watching this. You will regret being robbed of your precious 2 hours of life. If you insist on watching it, be sure to have plenty of tasks to do at hand so it's not a complete waste of time.

The Ballad of Jack & Rose A compelling look @ a father and daughter on an island commune-Daniel day Lewis shares his own island refuge with his 13 year old daughter- they live off the land - it is idyllic,peaceful,perfect- but Jack is getting sick and he needs help.It is hard for me to be objective about this film- since I was snagged from Suburbia by my parents and subjected to farm life for most of my formative years.They did a good job capturing the good and bad parts of living off the land.But of course all things must have act 2 conflicts-Beau Bridges is an evil developer building cookie-cutter dwellings(It is frustrating how generic housing is now) and Katherine Keener is sort of hired to be a surrogate mom for Rose- the experiment yields drama.This is a well told and acted flick and will probably hit home for other granola generation offspring like myself. B+

You won't get any spoilers here, I didn't hang around long enough to know how it ended. An hour was more than enough.A lot has already been said in these reviews about heavy-handed symbolism, staccato dialogue, lack of subtlety, etc, and also Day-Lewis's brave attempt to salvage something from it, so I won't rehash those.However, I wish to mention something that REALLY irritated me, and that was the camera work. A lot of it was in close-up, and they presumably used a hand-held camera. This led to such a jerky picture that at times I felt vague motion sickness. I've seen home movies done better.