From a purely guilty pleasure voyeuristic element, the $5.50 entrance price would have been worth it to watch Ricci play the white trash slut. The movie provided a lot more than that.
I've read a couple of different reviews in the local papers and nationally and the opinions about this movie range wildly, but I liked it a lot, mostly for how it played with conventional notions of sexuality, race and the effect of sex. The tease to get you into the theater is that Samuel Jackson plays a whacked out religious character who chains up a naked white girl to knock the devil slut out of her. All of the evil black man (coupled with the equally dangerous evil religious kook) taking sexual advantage of the poor white girl is raised in all its titillating glory. You just know from the previews that he is going to do her.
Well, as much fun as previews are, that is why you go to the movies, because they don't always turn out the way that you expect. The more I think about this movie and write about it, the more I like it, especially its positive treatment of sexuality. If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to spoil the plot, then stop reading now and come back after you've seen the show, because I'm going to reveal key plot points.
Ricci's character, Rae is a sexual mess. She is a nymphomaniac that screws everything that moves (including at one point in kind of a humorous scene an unsuspecting teenage boy). Her insatiable appetite is primarily designed to numb the pain she feels from the sexual abuse at the hands of one of her mom's boyfriends (and with her mother's knowledge).
Her captor and eventual savior is Samuel Jackson's Lazarus. Lazarus is toting his own sexual scars, including his wife leaving him for his brother and his wife aborting their child, which he desperately wanted. At times he conflates Rae with his wife and for a moment you feel that he has lost it and is simply exacting revenge on his ex-wife vicariously through Rae.
His efforts to help Rae (despite her attempts at seducing Lazarus) never turn sexual. He genuinely wants to help this girl and by the end of the movie as he gives her away as a bride, it is clear what he wanted -- he wanted a child, a daughter. He lost his child through his wife's abortion. He found a child, ironically a child whose mother pointedly says she didn't want, and adopts her emotionally. He treats her like a father.
One scene that some may feel is out of place with this analysis of the movie is when Lazarus decides to go back and play the Blues at the gin joint and drags Rae along so she can revel in the Bacchanalia. Yet, I liked this too, because it seemed to affirm the wild nature of sexuality and the need to acknowledge the wild side, even when you try and keep it grounded and focused to perform the magic it can on relationships. In fact, the movie ends with Rae using her sexuality to comfort and connect with her new husband, played by Justin Timberlake (who was the weakest link in this movie -- I just didn't buy his character).
The metaphor of the chain as a symbol of grounding and stability is a little bit outrageous, but hey, at least it is a metaphor in a movie. To top it all off, the movie has a nice blues soundtrack to add guitar licks and squeals to the story and visuals.
Great movie, story and message -- or I just really like looking at a white trash Christina Ricci.
4 comments:
Mmmm... Sam Jackson! He my fave! And together with a slutty Christina Ricci? Too much! I haven't seen anything about this movie. Will have to go check it. Hey, you go for Ricci, I go for Jackson, ok?
Cool Steve, you can have Jackson.
Interestingly enough the movie treats Jackson as the most sexually desirable character. At least three women throw themselves at his character.
I'm still struggling with why the white trash look is sexy to me. The nasty quotient gets me going I suppose.
Oh, that's easy, straight white boys fall for white trashy all the time. Just ask any transvestite prostitute, or real woman prostitute for that matter.
And as for Jackson, I'd throw myself at him, too, if I had the chance. Met Danny Glover once, and almost did it outright, but I held back. Some days I regret that....
I've been paying attention to this "white trash" style of woman that I find attractive. I watched another movie a couple of days ago, Sherrybaby with Maggie Gyllenhaal starring as a drug addled parole who fucks everything and runs around the whole show braless and in a halter top.
I think I've been warped into finding taboo sexy and this style represents taboo. I'm going to have to do some more research on this -- life can be rough here in the blogosphere.
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