Movie Review: Rambling Rose (1991)

Genre: Drama

Director: Martha Coolidge

Starring: Laura Dern, Robert Duvall, Diane Ladd, Lukas Haas, John Heard

Running Time: 112 minutes

Synopsis: During the Great Depression in rural Georgia, Rose (Laura Dern) is hired as the live-in housekeeper for Mr. and Mrs. Hillyer (Robert Duvall and Diane Ladd) and their three children, including 13-year-old Buddy (Lukas Haas). Rose is escaping a troubled background where she was forced in to prostitution. She falls in love with Mr. Hillyer, and in turn Buddy develops a crush on Rose. Mrs. Hillyer grows to admire the sexually spirited but good-at-heart Rose, and defends her through a series of misadventures.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Calder Willingham's book is enlivened by the quirks of the Hillyer family. Mrs. Hillyer is a slightly deaf early feminist studying for a Master's degree, Mr. Hillyer is stern but loving, and the kids are smarter and sassier than their age suggests. With Rose's thunderbolt sexuality a perfect catalyst, most of the family's actions and reactions are unconventional, allowing director Martha Coolidge sly access to humorous sparks amidst the undercurrents of lust and romance. Laura Dern (liberated but frazzled) and Diane Ladd (progressive but vulnerable) deliver standout performances.

What Does Not Work As Well: The structure is episodic and ultimately repetitive, the second half noticeably losing momentum with underdeveloped secondary characters rotating in and out of random shenanigans. The bookend structure featuring the grown-up Buddy (John Heard) adds nothing, and the final scene is painfully misguided.

Conclusion: This rose has both beauty and thorns.



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Movie Review: Sophie And The Rising Sun (2016)

A slow burning drama and romance, Sophie And The Rising Sun is a well-intentioned but languid story.

It's 1941 in rural South Carolina. A dazed and wounded Asian man arrives on a long distance bus in the tiny fishing community of Salty Creek. Mrs. Anne Morrison (Margo Martindale), a kindly widow, takes him in and nurses him back to health. Once he recovers, Ohta (Takashi Yamaguchi) reveals himself an expert gardener and helps Anne care for her yard.

He also demonstrates an eye for painting, a passion shared by Sophie Willis (Julianne Nicholson), a free-spirited single woman and crab catcher. Slowly a passion emerges between Ohta and Sophie, much to the disapproval of the local society ladies, especially the prudish Ruth Jeffers (Diane Ladd). Then the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour, and an asian man in a small community is deemed a most unwelcome presence.

Breathing deeply from a sense of a small and isolated place grappling with the sudden intrusion of the outside world, Sophie And The Rising Sun never rises much above its modest scale. Writer and director Maggie Greenwald adapts the 2001 Augusta Trobaugh novel with studious respect, and the metaphor for World War Two shaking a clueless nation out of its isolated slumber plays out along elementary lines.

The film unnecessarily extends to close to two hours, and the rudimentary plot simply cannot sustain the length. The pace is distressingly slow, long pauses, aching glances and repetitive scenes transforming the film into a proper test of endurance. The romance between Sophie and Ohta takes a long time to emerge, and once it does the bigoted disapproval of the local prudes commands more screen prominence than the lovers' passion.

And after the Pearl Harbor attack, the film further retreats into a basic hide and seek structure, the community split into enlightened progressives attempting to survive the torches-and-pitchforks brigade.

The absence of star power helps to maintain the largely featureless backwater ambiance, but also hinders the film's appeal. Julianne Nicholson does her best, but she joins Margo Martindale (brusque), Diane Ladd (stereotypically insufferable) and Takashi Yamaguchi (predictably stoic) as a secondary character in her own romance. Lorraine Toussaint as Mrs. Morrison's housekeeper Salome brings some quiet dignity to the cast in an underwritten role.

Sophie And The Rising Sun is pretty to look at, but nevertheless all too dreary.

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The Movies Of Diane Ladd

All movies starring Diane Ladd and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Chinatown (1974)

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Black Widow (1987)

Rambling Rose (1991)

Primary Colors (1998)

Joy (2015)

Sophie And The Rising Sun (2016)

The Last Full Measure (2019)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.