The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)

I love this movie so much

Thanks for the memories!

Strong and Moving!

hyped garbage

"The Ballad of Jack and Rose" is a subtle character based drama about a father and daughter living a rather bucolic lifestyle only for it to get shattered by three newbies who arrived on the scene. Sure the characters were well fleshed out, but that's what this film has to offer and nothing more. Sure these individuals lives have changed which was handled very well be writer/director Rebecca Miller. She brings life into these characters and gives them the liberation to flourish in their status quo.The story has a bit of a modernized version of The Garden of Eden along with snakes in both the figurative and literal sense. At most this film is just saturated with symbolism made famous by her playwright father Arthur Miller. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis) and is daughter Rose (Camilla Belle) have lived in solidarity in a commune on an island in the American East Coast. They live off the land resourcefully by organically growing their own food and utilize in providing their own electricity via windmills and don't rely on anyone outside their domain. The only non-resident who come by is a gardener named Gray (Jason Lee) who offers Rose flowers to plant, since being in her garden is where she spends most of her days. When news that Jack is dying from a heart condition, he fears that when dies Rose will likely soon follow. He then soon invites a middle-aged lady named Kathleen (Catherine Keener) and her two sons Rodney and Thaddius (Ryan McDonald and Paul Dano) to be house guests permanently. This surprises and unsettles Rose as she shifts her innocent ways and a swift turn on her father Jack.The balancing of this movie is to pave ways to certain components contrary to one another consumerism against idealism, sting in the past or moving on, making strides or staying putt. Miller succeeds in handling these issues unbiased. There are both good and bad sides to everything. Unfortunately,Jack's pro-stagnation beliefs can clearly and understandably be contrasted by Marty Rance's (Beau Bridges) pro-progression and the conflicts between them can be proven very inane at times. It is really forced down our throats that Jack is the protagonist and the worse thing is that Jack knows it.The aforementioned snake that causes the inevitable break-up between Jack and Kathleen which leads to her and her two sons to part ways leads to the return of Rose's back on happy terms again. Jack and Rose were okay before Kathleen and her sons came into their lives. Sex plays a pivotal role here as Jack and Kathleen take themselves to a place of consummate where they commit intercourse, instead of feeling warm inside, you feel the intensity burning in Rose's eyes as jealousy starts to manifest in her head. There's even a point where she becomes nearly homicidal as she tries to murder Kathleen or even her father. While this is happening, Rose feels that she herself could find a way to lose her virginity.Some people go through such great lengths to fit into those roles they even sacrifice their own bodies to make us feel sympathy for them. Daniel Day-Lewis did just that as when bare-chested he looks gaunt and semi-skeletal in appearance. Even though he's under his wife, Miller's direction, we know he can always muster in a great performance without being a slacker. Camilla Belle who is not a household name in Hollywood displays great acting which could feel like a breakthrough performance for her. Catherine Keener is great as always showing just how versatile she is as a performer.Sure the contrivances are quite frequent in "The Ballad of Jack and Rose", but it all gets concealed due to likable characters that we don't ever observe them. Sure the pace is slower than molasses, but it was done on purpose by Miller, can make fans feel very unsettled by it. I agree, it is losing a turtle race in its pacing, but this gives the characters ample time to develop and to make the audience become invested in them.

The movie had the potential to be an insightful look at what happens to an aging hippy (Lewis) when the world changes. However, it never really rose to the challenge. Lewis plays an aging hippy who lives with his teenage daughter on an island off the east coast. He is at war with a developer (Beau Bridges). However, you never get the depth that Jack (Lewis) is angry at development. He appears to resent it, but the only thing he does is work in his garden and look dour.His daughter Rose is a very good and disturbing person. She has been raised in isolation on the island, and has an almost unhealthy attachment to her father. Jack decides to try an "experiment". He is going to bring his girlfriend from the mainland with her two teenage sons. What was he thinking? You can't possibly like Jack much as anything but an irresponsible flake from this point on. It turns out that the older son, who his Mom is trying to make him lose weight because her husband had died from diabetes, is much more mature than Rose. It is the younger son (from "Little Miss Sunshine") who is more of the Don Juan.The confrontation/reconciliation with the developer was probably the best part of the movie. It showed that idealists are compromised and broken by "progress". However, the ending was rather silly, and you never really came to understand the characters in the movie better than superficial impressions. You couldn't really understand how a man would allow his daughter to be part of an "experiment" with two teenage boys (and then somehow regret it all). You don't really identify, nor understand Jack. Rose seemed a little too erratic. Now maybe, that was the point. However, the plot wasn't developed well enough to make one understand that this was the actual point.

You either love "The Ballad of Jack & Rose" or you hate it. I loved it, but I hated watching it the first time. Furthermore, I can understand why some people would heap praise on this quirky bit of avant-garde film-making while others would condemn it to oblivion. "The Ballad of Jack & Rose" is for serious movie lovers. You don't watch this film to relax and unwind. The story of the destruction of family is serious business despite some humorous interludes. Imagine watching a soap opera that could masquerade as social commentary about America after the 1960s. It is the kind of movie that would be terrific as the epilogue to class about the Hippie movement, Free Love, return to the wilderness, and it segues into the environmentalist movement. This movie is not suitable for children and if you cannot watch it in a single sitting, you are liable to feel like you are serving time just to get through its one hour and fifty-one minutes. The cast is extraordinary with Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis delivering a slam bang performance while Catherine Keener. Writer & director Rebecca Miller has helmed a film that is the American equivalent to an Ingmar Bergman film. Subtlety is the order of the day in "The Ballad of Jack & Rose." The characters are neither stereotype nor are they unrealistic. There are times, perhaps best described as uncomfortable, when lenser Ellen Kuras makes her camera such an integral part of the setting with the characters that you feel like you're eavesdropping on these two families and their troubles."The Ballad of Jack & Rose" takes place in the year 1986 on an island off the East Coast of the United States. Essentially, this is a soap opera about the theme of jealousy. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis of "My Left Foot") is a naturalized Scotsman who was once an engineer. Now, he is an ex-hippie turned environmentalist who sees no salvation in a future hard-wired by technology and growth has settled on this anonymous island where he lives now with his 16-year old daughter Rose (Camilla Belle of "Push") since his wife went away. Every quarter our protagonist leaves the island for the mainland and hooks up with Kathleen (Catherine Keener of "Living in Oblivion") to satisfy his sexual needs. Recently, Jack has learned that he has heart disease and he isn't getting around as agilely as he used to so he invites Kathleen and her two sons, Rodney (Ryan MacDonald of "Halloween: Resurrection") and Thaddius (Paul Dano of "The Girl Next Door") to join them.Aside from an occasional guest, such as Gray (Jason Lee of "Mallrats"), nobody visits the Slavins. Gray shows up to bring Rose her flowers, otherwise, Jack and Rose are left alone entirely to themselves. She doesn't want to share anybody with Jack. Indeed, when her father raises the subject of his imminent death, Rose notifies him that she plans to commit suicide after he dies because life won't be worth living without him. Of course, Rose's confession horrifies Jack. The only other interlopers on the island are the construction workers who are building a series of apartments for a land developer, Marty Rance (Beau Bridges of "Norma Rose") and Jack has a running feud with Marty.Meanwhile, matters reach a boil when Kathleen and her teenage sons arrive and set up house with them. Jack assures Rose that the presence of these outsiders is nothing more than an experiment. Reluctantly, Rose accepts them. Initially, nothing untoward occurs until Rose behaves like a voyeur and watches Jack and Kathleen hope in the sack for sex. As Jack and Kathleen have sex, Rose approaches Rodney with an invitation to have sex with her. Rose is a virgin. In fact, she has never been kissed and earlier she tried to persuade Gray to kiss her but he refused. Unfortunately, for Rose, she cannot seduce the paunchy Rodney who never removes his windbreaker jacket and has decided to become a hairstylist for women. Rodney agrees to cut her hair. Deliberately, she arms herself with a double-barrel shotgun and invades their privacy. When they pause to recognize her, she discharges the shotgun more out of shock than design. Indeed, Rose wants to share her father with nobody.Later, Rose has a tryst with Thaddius who is a diametrical opposite of his younger brother Rodney. They have sex in her room in her bed. The next day Jack sees the sheets waving in the breeze with a blood stain on it and the words "This is an experiment" with an arrow pointing at the blood stain. Of course, Jack is furious. Rose is still trying to get back at her father for having sex with Kathleen. In fact, she has stolen one of Thaddeus's cages to trap copperhead snakes and has put it under her bed. During her rendezvous with Thaddius, their bumping and grinding released the door to the cage and snake got out. Later, Kathleen freaks out when she sees the copperhead. Jack cannot find it. Jack has a showdown with Thaddius on the site of an old commune and they fight about his having sex with Rose. Jack knocks Thaddius out of a tree and breaks both legs and an arm. Kathleen takes her son back to the mainland, but before they leave, Thaddius tells her that Rose tried to kill her by releasing the snake in the house.Writer & director Rebecca Miller doesn't flinch at tackling uncomfortable themes. During one scene, Jack winds up being kissed by his daughter on the lips and he feels guilty. Eventually, Jack dies and Rose turns their house (they shun television) into a floral arrangement and sets it on fire while she curls up next to her death father. Just when you think that she is going to die with her dad, she breaks out and goes off on her own to make a life.

"The Ballad of Jack and Rose" (2005): Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Camilla Belle, Catherine Keener, Beau Bridges, Jason Lee, Paul Dano, Ryan McDonald, and Jena Malone. This is the "ballad" of a man trying to keep his personal 1967 alive through his land, home, lifestyle, and daughter. Things are both ideal, and deeply troubled. Enter the "guests" who are mere catalysts for what lurks beneath. Although hyped as a comedy, it is not. At all. It IS touching, creepy, sad, embarrassing, delicate, beautiful, awkward, dramatic, pathetic… but not funny. Lewis always does a great job, Belle was a revelation of delicate, desperate wisdom. Keener was her rough edged, fragile persona. This story lives somewhere between gritty realism and a Legend of Olde. It appears very here and now, while it feels symbolic and literary… a long story to be told night after night around a fire.