Riley Keough and Juno Temple
“JACK AND DIANE” My rating: C (Opening Nov. 30 at the Screenland Crossroads)
110 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Jack and Diane” is a teenage lesbian love story.
And, no, it’s not hot.
Instead it’s…well, weird. Strange. Definitely pretentious.
Diane (Juno Temple…last seen as the trailer court white trash Lolita in “Killer Joe”) is a British teen spending the summer with her aunt in NYC.
We first encounter Diane wandering around Greenwich Village, begging strangers to let her use their cell phones. With her unkempt blond mane she looks like the waif on a poster for the Broadway musical “Les Miserables.” When she’s under pressure (which is often) her nose bleeds. She has a tendency to pass out in odd places – like on the floor of a bathroom in a noisy disco.
When she runs into the boyish Jack (Riley Keough, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter) it’s love at first sight. At least on Jack’s part (she has a mix tape she has long wanted to share with someone special). It takes Diane a bit longer to get on board (apparently she has had no prior sexual experience).
Bradley Rust Gray’s film follows the two young lovers as they come together, pull apart, party, and fight. There are confrontations with Diane’s disapproving aunt (Cara Seymour). On the rebound after a nasty spat, Jack has a fling with an older woman (Kylie Minogue).
And throughout Gray alternates the live action with disturbing stop-action animated sequences by the Brothers Quay. Here strands of hair, knots of viscera and rivulets of blood writhe sinuously and make squishy, slurping noises.
The girls watch an unsettling internet web site on which college girls are drugged and sexually abused.
At one point Diane transforms into a werewolf and eats Jack … but apparently that’s only a dream.
Never mind.
“Jack and Diane” (no relation to the John Mellencamp song with the same title) has a queasy Cronenberg-ish feel to it, with allegory, fantasy, eroticism, and adolescent angst colliding.
There’s a lot going on here and the acting is okay…but then why does it feel as banal as a teenage slumber party?
| Robert W. Butler
How the hell can you make a movie with the concept of ‘lesbian werewolves’ Boring??? EPIC FAIL!!!!