Jackie (2012)

Waste of time

Great Film overall

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

What a beautiful, affecting story. Twin sisters from Holland, raised by gay fathers, travel to the US to help out the injured birth mother they've never met. One is serious, uptight, hardworking, career-obsessed; she has issues to work out with the misogynistic, belittling boss who undervalues her. The other is sunny, fun-loving, optimistic, family-oriented; she has issues to work out with her controlling, infantilizing husband. (Yeah, a bit of a Twilight Sparkle/Pinkie Pie dynamic.) The former has never let herself waste time wondering about their "womb," while the latter has always had a bit of an obsession with her visions of their American hippie mom. Yes, there are rotten male characters (on top of the boss and husband, the sisters get assaulted by a despicable group of men outside a tavern), but they're balanced by good ones, and the movie doesn't shove any ham-fisted or misandrist messages down your throat. It's 'feminist,' not obnoxious.The film is carried by excellent performances from the three leading ladies. Carice is truly an extraordinary gem every single time--she's impossibly beautiful AND irresistibly adorable ("cuteiful," I daresay), crazy-good at acting and emoting, graceful, dainty, etc. Her natural wide-eyed innocence and vulnerability can also seep into a character just enough to render her more sympathetic in moments where perhaps the same role, filled by another actress, might not be. Everything she's in is simply so much better than it would be without her. Jelka holds her own alongside her sister and Holly. And Holly? Is every bit as great as you'd naturally anticipate, in the role of the mother who's definitely not what anyone expects. I found myself wondering whether these characters might in any way connect with the van Houtens' real-life personalities and relationship. It's a journey of self-discovery, bonding, learning, love, and growth, and things develop quite interestingly as we learn more and more of Jackie. The drama is amped up by such debacles as running out of gas in the middle of the desert, a terrifying snakebite, being attacked by rapists, the sisters' personal problems, and so on, while the end takes an unforeseen turn. I'd have liked it if both sisters got to do karaoke, since Carice sings wonderfully as well, but that's not an inherent quibble with the script, which gave Sofie her own rewards.This is also the kind of film whose glorious scenery and RV theme spark in me nostalgia for family vacations and road trips, and stoke my own sense of wanderlust. It's gorgeous and should definitely be on people's watchlists.

I enjoyed this film, whether because of or in spite of some of its peculiarities, I know not. Two young adult dutch sisters, with lives in Holland as problematic as anybody's, get word that their absentee American mother has gone into a hospital in New Mexico, dare each other to take on the job, and wind up still together, meeting her for the first time at a rehab center in the States. The story is of how they all get to know each other and how the sisters are able to make some changes of their own, thanks to the journey. Oddly, many sexes are represented here, but decent non-macho, non-dickhead males are thin on the ground. To be fair, that doesn't seem to be a poke at Americans, since the sisters have the same issues to deal with back in Amsterdam-and are forced to deal with them via Skype during the road trip; just odd. Another oddness is that the filmmakers set and shot the story in a New Mexico that could have been the location for "the Road". It's a flat, barren wasteland that looks more like the deserts of West Texas or Oklahoma than like anybody's Land of Enchantment. Their trip takes them through one cruddy jerkwater roadhouse after another. That serves to point out that, yes, some Europeans do like American Country-Western music. But what happened to the Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe and Albequerque? New Mexico can be spectacular, but the director seems to have chosen what she found under a rock instead. Odd. If for no other reason, this film is worth watching for the "Dykes on Bikes" sequence. I will say no more.

(The spoiler within this review is not too bad. I think you can read this review instead of the wikipedia-summary before watching the movie without getting disappointed. Perhaps it even increases your "adventure".)On the surface this move seems to deal with two sisters having a great adventure on the road and leaving their old lives behind. Already within the first minutes you can see typical patterns; both sisters struggle with their individual lives. The older one is egocentric and career focused, the younger one seems to have deep problems in her current relationship. As soon as they viewer gets to know that both of them are going to have a road trip, the spectator can imagine that this will change both lives and characters. This pattern has always been present in movies, from present to past. (Just as in Despicable Me, The Intouchables, Cruel Intentions,… to list a few examples.)In my point of view, the movies subject is on a different level. Beyond the obvious plot, it deals with the family-ideal as it exists and especially with the relations between its members. Whilst the viewer gets comfortable with the situation, the ending questions which connections and what behavior a family member has to fulfill. And I'm pretty sure that the writers even had some thoughts which didn't come to my mind yet. Furthermore, I think that the spectator has to be concerned with this question before watching the movie. Otherwise it's going to be clumsy and sometimes boring.Besides, the music and the landscape pictures are beautiful. (Concerning the booklet and the movie's title… well, too bad they won't reach the expected audience.)

Road-movies can be fun depending on the depth of the story and the journey there and back might even leave you begging for more. "Jackie", however, is an insipid excursion into boredom city, where the waiting-for-something-to-happen is the only thing actually happening. We've all been on that road before, looking for that something meaningful we think we lost and finding it after a long search may not bring the satisfaction we were expecting. It's not a long movie, but the slow pace and lack of rhythm makes it the perfect sleeping medicine. Unfortunately you realize you're still in the theater, so snoozing through the credits might not look very nice. The story is not so bad, but the fact that it takes so long for everything to wrap up makes this movie quite a pain to watch.