IOWA

As a New York City based editor and onceuponatime native of SE Iowa (about 15 miles from where this film was shot) I knew I had to see this film. I had not heard of it but was very pleasantly surprised.

Farnsworth pulled off the trifecta here of writing, directing, and acting and he did a pretty good job at all three. He's obviously a competent filmmaker. The cast did a pretty good job - I was a little disappointed to hear a "southern" accent too often. The main female lead really grew on me. At first I thought she was a little too Hollywood and too good looking but I really bought into her character.

The editing was done well. At times it was a little too "showy" when simple cuts could have told the story better. But the story kept moving forward and there were never any of those slow moments when you wish you could hit fast forward.

I expected a little more juxtaposition showing idyllic rural Iowa life and the effect that the meth problem has had on a lot of small Midwestern towns. Meth is a big big problem and it affects a lot of people who have nothing to do with meth. This movie mainly focuses on a small group of characters who deal meth, take meth, or are related to meth users.

All in all, it was very well done. Kind of reminded me of Badlands. Maybe we could call this "Badlands One State Over" since Badlands was in Nebraska. It's definitely got some over-the-top violence but done well in the context of the film.

Farnsworth should be proud of himself. He did a great job here managing all 3 duties. The writing was tight, he plays the role real well, and he had some very interesting directing choices. I definitely recommend Iowa.

Although I wouldn't say this is the best movie I've seen, I thought that it did drive home the addicting and devastating effects of meth production, sale and use. The acting, for the most part, was captivating. I've lived in Iowa for almost a year now, and some folks have been worried about the perspective this gives of the state. I think that the movie really could have been placed in any rural community and still drive home the point. Quite honestly, I think that without the sex scenes, if this movie was shown to junior high school and high school students, it would quell any curiosity to try meth (particularly, I think, the tweaking scene and its aftermath). I still think "Requiem for a Dream" is a better movie that talks about the effects of dreams and the use of drugs to attain those dreams, but I have recommended this movie to many friends as a must-see movie.

The week before I saw Iowa, I saw Art School Confidential, in which a pretentious student makes a film and can't decide whether he wants it to be art or violent exploitation. Iowa could be the film that he made. I can see elements of much better movies in Iowa - Spun and Natural Born Killers. However, in addition to artiness, both those movies had good character development and coherent story lines. Iowa. This movie stumbles to a preposterous end. I have to admit that it had consistency. This movie is bad from beginning to end and not particularly worse or better in any part. The actors all did what they could. Roseanna Arquette deserves better. She demonstrates that she is very talented, very funny, and very sexy. But why does she have to demonstrate it in this turd ball.

I saw this movie on a trip to Iowa, and not knowing much about Matt Farnsworth, the director (or the subject of meth, for that matter), I had no preconceived expectations, but walked away impressed and educated by a first-time filmmaker's jarring exploration into addiction.

Though Farnsworth doesn't quite explore the psychology of drug addiction as much as he could, the frenetic, visual representation illustrates the world of meth from a user's perspective, providing a sharp contract to the small town setting of the film. Farnsworth is capable in the lead role, but its Michael T. Weiss's turn as a sadistic, power-tripping sheriff that steals the show.

A couple of complaints: Fransworth occasionally goes for shock value, mistaking it for a message of rude awakening. And the hand-held, store-bought-video-camera interludes of the Iowa landscape seem forced and shlocky. The landscape means very little to the film (presumably less than Farnsworth thinks it does, since the movie is named for the state it resides in), as this story could be easily translated to any city (big or small) in the states.

I've read Farnsworth has been leading an anti-meth crusade, and while that's honorable, I hope (for selfish reason) that he has not abandoned directing for this higher calling. I can't wait to see what he does with his second go-round.

"Iowa" wants to be "Requiem for a Dream" for Midwest meth, but it comes across as a hard R rated "Reefer Madness".

Yes, drugs are bad, and meth is horribly pernicious, as an addiction and how it destroys people, families and communities. But these characters who are either dumb or ridiculous and the eye-rolling plot won't teach that lesson to anyone.

While writer/director/star Matt Farnsworth has some charisma on screen, his partner Diane Foster plays a wincibly silly wide-eyed innocent corrupted by drugsas was already satirized by Susan Sarandon in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". I really felt sorry for her for all the totally unnecessary nudity she was put through. It wasn't until the end of the film that I realized I was supposed to think these two were recent high-school graduates to explain some of their naiveté, as we are bombarded by their school photos, but if so, they even looked older than the folks on "The O.C.". While they have good chemistry on screen, they are a pale imitation of a "Badlands"-type couple.

The guest stars are badly used. Michael T. Weiss, who was so good in TV's "The Pretender", is completely ludicrous as a corrupt parole officer and his brutal violence is just plain crazy, as his character pretty much ruins any social significance for the film. Rosanna Arquette has to be even sleazier than she rolled around for David Cronenberg as a very low rent Livia Soprano. John Savage even has to mouth the old baby boomer excuses about I did pot but this is worse. A Goth chick shows up, with the odd explanation that she's a stripper from Des Moines. The obligatory Latino drug dealer appears - in Iowa?

With a limited budget, the interior view of meth use is portrayed quite vividly, with quite scary hallucinations. We certainly see them go crazy.

While the Iowa locations are used very well (including an amusing scene of a propane gas robbery), the accents and church references are confusingly Southern Baptist. Guns seem to be used by law abiding and law breaking citizens here more than in any inner-city drug-dealing movie.

The songs of Iowa's best known bard Greg Brown are used throughout, but oddly are not listed in the credits. I hope they were used with permission.

I caught this at its commercial run in NYC because I missed it at the Tribeca Film Festival where it got considerable-- and inexplicable-- buzz.