The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Loved the movie. The beautiful story went well with the picturesque setting in our smallest Canadian province on the east coast, Prince Edward Island, where the movie was filmed. Daniel Day Lewis was great. I wonder, did he have to lose a lot of weight to play the part? Ryan MacDonald did an excellent job and gave the movie some comedic relief. It brought back memories of the good old commune days! Maybe a return to those days might do our world some good. Beau Bridges gave a good performance as well but the sweet innocence of Rose was really the essence of the movie. You could feel the love connection between her and her father, be it father/daughter love or the love felt between lovers.

This film is a must-see for anyone who has witnessed or is dealing with emotional incest. Lewis portrays Jack, a single father who has lived on an island in isolation with his daughter until his new girlfriend comes to move in. Up until the girlfriend's arrival, Jack and his daughter Rose have lived in isolation on an island compound.

After the girlfriend's arrival, Rose's jealousy grows, and she tries to take the girlfriend's place. In an effort to to marginalize the girlfriend, Rose takes up a new-found interest in sexuality, thinking that must be what her father wants and is getting from the girlfriend.

It's obvious to anyone watching that Jack loves his daughter, and in many ways has been a wonderful father to her. The problem is not that he does not love her, or that he loves her too much. The problem is that he's loved her in the wrong way. He allowed Rose to fill the void left by her mother. He elevated Rose to the position of spouse. Jack realizes this, and sets out to undo the damage.

The movie also deals with the dreams of reconciliation children of divorce have. Rose displays all the postcards her mother sends on a wall in the house and tells the new girlfriend that "one day she's coming back."

I always find Daniel Day-Lewis's characters engaging, and Jack is no different. He's a brilliant and eccentric man who is conflicted by the desire to love and protect his daughter, and the desire to prepare her to be an independent woman. He has the clarity to recognize his foibles, and his bumbling efforts to set things straight bring compassion to human frailty.

There's nothing more exciting than seeing quality work come from a group of unknowns. While Daniel Day Lewis and Catherine Keener are the marquee name anchors for the film the most delightful surprises come from Camilla Bell and Ryan McDonald who give honest and often very mature performances. McDonald in particular has a knack for off-beat humor and gets some of the best lines in the film. Given the gorgeous setting, the beautiful cinematography and the high caliber writing I can't think of a better film I've seen so far this year. The movie is not without its flaws, but they're minimal in relation to all the elements that are wonderfully right.

"Ballad of Jack and Rose" almost works as it examines the pitfalls of extreme idealism.

Writer/director Rebecca Miller sets up an archetypal situation, of an isolated Utopian who thinks he can create and control a perfect living environment with his daughter.

Daniel Day Lewis makes him too sympathetic, particularly his Pyrrhic politics, while his character's nemeses are too simplistic, even as he finally is defeated by mortality and human nature, or perhaps what some theologians would consider original sin. Lewis as the dad is even more creepily naive than J. M. Barrie in "Finding Neverland" in wanting innocent children to never grow up, even while indulging his own adult needs.

As with "Personal Velocity," Miller well captures conversational dialog within broken families, particularly across genders, and she is uncannily good at giving us young and older teens, as puberty is presented here as a palpable enemy.

Beau Bridges's good old boy developer is an overly stereotyped builder of ticky tacky McMansions; it would have been more interesting if he was threatening the wetlands with solar powered, energy recycling houses.

The continuing image of poisonous snakes is a bit heavy-handed symbolism of women as the cause for the fall of Eden. While Miller in a Q & A at a showing at the Landmark Sunshine Theater in NYC said she was inspired by the Gnostic Gospels, I saw ironic parallels with Lot's daughters, who coming from Sodom and Gomorrah have much in common with this daughter of a failed commune. Camilla Belle is excellent as a girl who gradually, albeit a bit scarily, discovers her powers, and her male counterparts are very believable as kids with their own problems.

Most of the audience was disquietingly dissatisfied with the ending and coda of the film, so much of the questioning to Miller focused on those aspects, as she claimed they were not after-thoughts or revisions. But the writing and characterizations shown did not support the changes she claimed the characters had gone through to justify the denouement.

An interesting comparison can be made with "Off the Map" which also views an alternative life style through the eyes of a budding teen age girl, but whose family is held together by an earth mother.

The Dylan and other singer-songwriter selections on the soundtrack are very effective.

I'm an Indy film addict, and was iffy about watching this one because of the description above, but on a whim i bought it and watched it and fell in love. The story of Jack and Rose is told so beautifully and perfectly that as the story progressed I found myself hoping that something would change, or hoping for some plot twist saying that rose wasn't his daughter, because I truly wanted these two to work out. The devotion between father and daughter is amazingly portrayed, Daniel Day-Lewis was perfect and I cannot imagine anyone else in this movie. Once i finished watching for the first time I found myself almost in a daze, the progression of Rose's whole being was a delicate matter that was handled beautifully. There was a feeling of tension throughout that drew me in. I have never fallen in love with a movie like this before. Bravo to the writer and cast and all involved. Thank you for this beautiful film about love, loss and culture change.