Georgia

Sadie Flood (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is an aspiring singer. Her older sister Georgia Flood (Mare Winningham) is a successful country singer and the head of her family. Troubled addict Sadie's love for Georgia is tinged with a sense of inadequacy and jealousy. She's desperate to be Georgia but doesn't know how. She has more ambition than Georgia but with much less musical talent. She marries boyfriend Axel.

I love both JJL and Mare. I love Sadie and Georgia's complicated sibling relationship. Their first kitchen scene is amazing and I want more of that. This would be a super great character based film if Sadie stays at Georgia's home for the week ending with a reunion with their dad. The movie elevates everytime the sisters have a scene together. On the other hand, the music is problematic. I'm not a country fan and Georgia's music bores me. That's almost as bad as Sadie who is suppose to be a weak singer. I don't know why there is so much of her music if it's supposed to be inferior. At best, they are a bowling alley band. The music is begging to be cut out so that more character scenes can be added. The movie wastes half a hour with the band playing bad gigs. It could have represented all of that in much shorter time. It should be the movie's fifteen minute introductory first act. This is best as a family drama and less about the band. The sisters' simmering passive aggressive conflicts are the source of everything in this movie. Mare got an Oscar nomination although Jennifer did not.

I suppose 'Georgia' makes a more mellifluous title than 'Sadie,' because that's the Flood sister that gets the lion's share of attention in this movie. Sister Georgia has built herself a career as a successful country music singer and has a stable marriage and family life. Sadie sings too, sort of; she's not that good and performs with semi-pro bands in mostly empty nightclubs. The two women have a complex and fragile relationship. Sadie seems to love her sister and admire her talent, but just below the surface lurk envy and resentment. Georgia for her part is always polite but somewhat on edge when Sadie is around, as if she's afraid her sister might lose control of herself and do something stupid or embarrassing. That fear is not unfounded, for Sadie is, as one critic described her, an emotional black hole, the kind of person who sucks in all the concern and attention in a family. She's also a substance abuser who is always walking on the edge of personal destruction.

The movie was written by Barbara Turner, mother of Jennifer Jason Leigh who plays Sadie, and directed by Ulu Grosbard. They tend to underplay rather than overplay Sadie's drug use and erratic behavior. She often threatens to do something out-of-control or embarrassing but most often stops just a bit short. Only once in the film is she shown really suffering the ill effects of being a junkie, but it's a harrowing scene. Also, Sadie and Georgia are often right on the verge of an emotional bust-up scene, but they only really have it out one time as well. This keeps the film from degenerating into caricature but it may stop it from being a great film rather than just a good one.

Director Grosbard took one very large chance on a scene where Sadie is Georgia's guest onstage at a benefit show. Sadie sings a Van Morrison song, "Take Me Back," stretching it out with her own improvised lyrics before an uncomfortably silent audience, forcing Georgia to come to both Sadie's and the crowd's rescue. To make this scene work, Grosbard had to let the song run on a long time, some eight minutes. This runs the risk of alienating some viewers and providing an easy target for critics, but you have to admire the daring it took to include it.

'Georgia' is a good, solid, if not spectacular film about sibling rivalry and family relations. Leigh is good in her role, as is Mare Winningham as the more subdued title character. Of the supporting cast I especially liked Max Perlich as a hero-worshiping fan that Sadie uses by turning him into her husband.

I read with effervescent amusement and disbelief the comments below. Jennifer Jason Leigh the best actress of the color film era? Goodness, where on EARTH are such judgments formed? From "Fast Times at Ridgmont High" ??? She is that rare actress who is unable to communicate either via verbal or nonverbal means - whatever drugs some of you folks might be on, send me some!

This is an unholy MESS of a movie - it has the worst of everything - a horribly written script, a plot with no point, a non-credible storyline and some of the most poorly drawn, stereotypical characters I've seen in a movie. Add to that hamfisted acting, labored directing and you have one royally screwed up-movie!

I think a few of the people below who have thrown laurels this movie's way would love to buy a suit of the emperor's new clothes - rare is the movie that comes along which is as pointless, vapid and obnoxious as this one.

Usually I like films that are good character studies, but Georgia fell flat as a character study. At almost two and a half hours long, the film grew dull and too long very quickly. I have the highest regard for Jennifer Jason Leigh's work as an actress/writer/producer, but I can only hope that her real singing is much better in real life than in this movie! It's just that Leigh's Sadie is an unlikeable, unsympathetic character, and her and Georgia's sibling rivalry is not gone into nearly enough detail to MAKE Sadie a sympathetic character. Mare Winningham does a very good job, and the woman has some beautiful pipes! Who knew? An OK film, but with the talented Leigh at the helm, it should have been MUCH better.

Sadie is desperately looking up to her older sister Georgia who is a famous C&W artist. Sadie wants to be a famous artist like her sister, but is always doing everything wrong. Her desperate need to be accepted by her sister is constantly complicated by her drug and alcohol problems.

Beyond anything else you can say about this film, it is a showcase for Jennifer Jason Leigh. She not only stars -- and sings -- but produced the film, and along with her mother (Barbara Turner) wrote the script, based on a real-life experience.

The casting of Ted Levine is interesting. Apparently he was cast to help distance him from the "Buffalo Bill" image he had acquired. But they made little attempt to modify his look. He still looks very much like Buffao Bill, though he is quite capable of altering his appearance by merely growing a mustache (see "Monk").