Foxfire (2013)

Brilliant and touching

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This film was only marginally a 2...it really deserved a 1. A few of the actresses were decent some of the time...but overall this was a total waste of film, and a total waste of my time to watch. There was nothing about the plot or the characterizations that made me want to keep going after the first 30 minutes...but I kept persevering, although I should have gone with my first impulses and stopped then. The only thing in the whole movie which wasn't a waste of time was the soundtrack--some good choices of more obscure '50s jump boogie contrasting with the more mainstream pop of the era. As for the more recent music in the movie, I don't have anything good to say about Taylor Kirk except that he seems a Leonard Cohen wannabe. Poor scripting, marginal acting, bad accents...and although I've never read the Joyce Carol Oates book on which it was based, I know now why I don't want to. I've also never seen the earlier movie based on the book, but I certainly saw nothing in this movie that would make me want to watch another crack at the same material. If you have any interest in good filmmaking, don't waste your time watching this trash.

Laurent Cantet director of the Cannes palm D'or and Oscar Nominated "The Class" latest effort "Foxfire" did little to impress me a film about a group of teenage girls in upstate New York in 1950's who call them selves "Foxfire" they are angry and out to cause trouble and who can blame them I blame the director of this film and the dialect coach and casting director. The ensemble performance by the female cast played out like amateur actors in a B film the dialogue sounded to Canadian who can blame Laurent Cantet he is French he probably couldn't notice the difference and the dialect coach must have been deaf. The film itself stretched out its welcome running 2hours and 20minutes I felt the film was going no where after watching it for 90 minutes. And the fact that the film won a best actress prize at The San Sebastian International Film Festival Katie Coseni the jury must not have had much to choose from to give a best actress award.

I have not read the novel, nor seen the 1996 version, so I cannot base my review on any sort of comparison. Filled with newcomers, this film really surprised me. I was hooked from the first scene and my interest continued for the length of the film. This is a long film, over two hours but it did not feel like it. The performances were outstanding, especially by the actress portraying legs. With so many lousy films and independent attempts that are failures, it was a pleasure to be rewarded with this viewing. I would guess that several promising careers have now begun. Kudos to all involved with the making of this film!

Now - this is a totally different film from the 1996 version - that was an Angelina Joly display - and I loved it. The 2012 film is so much darker and has so much more integrity than film nr. 1 - yet the sexual sphere was less in this film. The boys got away totally - I mean the high-school thugs - but it concentrated on the promiscuous dirty old men. But than again that would not have worked without the gangs physical involvement. I do'nt get that - "dirty old men" are formed in early years- why not address it - like nr. 1 did. I have not red the book, only seen both movies but I am bewildered. I liked nr 1 because of Angelina Joly, but I liked nr 2 better because of it's message - STAY OUT OF CRIME !!!!