I wonder what the over/under on career sex scenes Shailene Woodley is going to have. Right now, I’d put it at somewhere between 20 and 25. She’s young, beautiful, has –quite clearly—a long career ahead of her and seems to have no qualms about nudity on camera. She will leave many an unemployed boytoy painfully reminiscing from a bar stool about how Shailene was his for five minutes. Just ask yourself where Shiloh Fernandez or Thomas Jane is come 2025.
I started the review with sex here because not much happens in the ridiculously titled White Bird in a Blizzard. Unsuited for motherhood or marriage, 1980s small town parent Eve (Eva Green) disappears one day and is only seen in the flashbacks of her teen daughter Kat (Woodley). And Kat ain’t exactly fussed about it. I imagine this could have been a very different film with the Kat club combing the county for curbed contraband containing comprehensible clues. Cool.
This ain’t that film. Kat almost treats her mother’s absence as a Godsend; at least now, mom will stop hitting on Kat’s loser boyfriend, Phil (Fernandez). After about ten minutes of screen time, nobody is looking for mom at all. Some Gone Girl you are. Yeah, people will knock themselves out to find Rosamund Pike, but Eva Green can suck it.
There’s a huge discrepancy in the framing of mom and dad in White Bird; Eva may only appear in flashbacks, but when she’s part of the film, she’s front and center and Jim Carrey-level overacting. Is she batshit crazy or just an awful a
ctress? Dad (Christopher Meloni) is constantly in the celluloid extremities, quietly and awkwardly standing by himself off to the side or well to the rear of a shot. I’m not sure quite what to make of this other than writer/director Gregg Araki certainly has style. I’m still holding out that Araki will make a great film one day, though there’s little evidence of his desire to do much behind the camera besides demonstrate a slight panache and advertise his own bisexuality.
For about an hour, I wondered if this were not a mystery, but an existential piece, like Fight Club or The Machinist. Mom only exists in the past tense here, and Eva Green’s hamming is so comical that it can’t possibly have described a real person, right? Right? During this time, White Bird has little going for it besides Shailene’s impressive rack. The film presents as a thinkpiece, but has little to say about mom, dad or Kat and seems more interested in asking the question of how Kat feels about mom’s disappearance than getting an answer. If you give White Bird a chance, you will wish to see the final five minutes if for no other reason than to have something to discuss.
Mom is gone without a word
After some acting that’s quite absurd
The plot rarely swerves
If not for the curves
I’d flip this film the White Bird
Rated R, 91 Minutes
D: Gregg Araki
W: Gregg Araki
Genre: Gone Girl, unsought
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Absentee parents, maybe
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Detectives
