White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) Reviews

• Strong Coming of Age Story

  alisonc-12014-07-22

  Kat is a 17-year-old girl in the suburbs, growing up in the late 1980s and observing her parents' dysfunctional marriage at close hand while trying to cope with first love, relationships, sex and friendships - all the growing pains that being 17 involves. When her mother disappears one day, the police think she's probably run off, perhaps with a boyfriend; Kat thinks her mother just got so fed up with her boring, empty, perfect-housewife life that she finally left it to find something better. Kat herself doesn't know how she feels about that; truly, she doesn't really feel much of anything, especially because her mother had recently been so intrusive in her life. Her father seems meek and lost after her mother leaves, but both of them will eventually have to pick up the pieces and go on. If only Kat would stop having those disturbing dreams about where her mother might be.... This is really far more of a coming-of-age story than it is anything else; aside from some dream images, there's very little that would fit the term "fantastical," even though I saw it at Montreal's Fantasia Festival. There is some very fine acting, from Eva Green as the mother, Shailene Woodley as Kat, Christopher Meloni as Kat's father and Thomas Jane as a police detective, and both writer/director Gregg Araki (from the novel by Laura Kasischke) and the cast do a very good job of capturing that confusing stage of adolescence, where one is not quite fully grown up but is certainly not at all a child anymore either. I very much enjoyed the film, even if Fantasia is an odd place to see it!

• Kooky, Laughable, Livid, Ludicrous and Lurid

  Siebert_Tenseven2014-10-12

  I completely enjoyed this film and am looking forward to watching it again. I enjoy Gregg Araki's work because it's always a bit strange, and this film is no exception. Everyone acts a little weird and does a great job of it. A few of the script lines had me laughing out loud. The pacing is stop and go so be prepared for that. In addition, there are some things that might not make sense, so if you like things to be all set up in the correct compartments, forget it. Essentially, a lot of Araki's films are about getting out of the comfort zone. Obviously this creates a lot of anxiety among motion picture producers and even more so amongst the viewers of his films. The fact that this film exists at all is a testament to the perseverance of a director with a unique skew on the world and the gift of being able to capture it.

• 2min out of 91

  labikkina2014-12-16

  "Nice-to-watch-on-a-Sunday-afternoon-if you-don't-have-anything- better-to-do." kind of movie. I liked the photography, the soundtrack, and scenography, though. Not so much the plot which is a poor vehicle for what the central idea of the movie is or tries to be. The acting wasn't exactly Oscar material either, specially the girl playing Cat. I couldn't hate her and I couldn't feel any sympathy for her either. She was just annoying and that detracts a lot from the message that the film as a whole seeks to deliver. They could have cast a different actress who was able to add more depth to the character and not make it appear so trivial, Shailene Woodley just confused indifference with shallowness, two different concepts. The plot reveals itself early, no need to be particularly observant to imagine what could have happened and there are many obvious reasons for that, however the motive that set in motion the events resulted a bit less predictable and those turned out to be the only 2min out of 91min of film that I found somewhat interesting.

• Not that great

  Seth_Rogue_One2016-02-13

  This movie is a hard movie to rate I feel, although many scenes are well orchestrated together as a movie it just doesn't make you feel anything, and the ending is clearly meant to be moving and shocking but it's really not. Acting is... Okay, it's not bad but again the cast fail to make you sympathise with any of them, visually it's really good looking so that's always a plus but a lot of times the movie seems more focused on showcasing Shailene Woodley's breasts than anything else. Now there's nothing wrong with them at all, in fact they are pretty neat however I'd prefer her keeping her clothes on if that meant that the director could focus on telling the story in it's best way as possible. Listed as a drama/mystery/thriller but the drama that is feel too flat and superficial to ever hit an emotional core, even though it tries in the end but by then it's too late and based on how the characters interacted with each other previous having that boastful dramatic ending simply does not make much sense. As far as the mystery well... sure there is some mystery I suppose but there are only so many ways it can end so it doesn't become very successful in that department either, plus most times it focuses on the teenager's sex-life more than anything else. As far as the thriller goes, well even less there going on honestly, there's not many scenes of suspense here to be found. No tbh it felt like this movie would work a lot better if they did it as a dark comedy and went a little more crazy with it, I think the movie could have succeeded at being that with just minor tweaks to the script. I was debating whether to give it a 5 or a 4 but after writing down my thoughts here it has to be a 4 after all, there is talent involved but the movie just kinda feels a bit pointless.

• A mix of styles and tones that don't work

  estebangonzalez102015-02-06

  "And just like that, my virginity disappeared. Just like my mother." I did not make that quote up; Shailene Woodley's character (Kat Connors) actually says this while she narrates her life to a psychologist played by Angela Bassett. I wasn't familiar with director Gregg Araki's previous work, but I found this mysterious thriller problematic and at odds with itself. On the one hand it focuses on Kat's sexual awakening, but on the other we are introduced with some cartoonish characters like Eva Green's Eve Connors who seems to be playing a similar role as she did in 300 and Sin City. She gives a very campy performance, while Woodley is playing an authentic character. I just found the tone of the film very strange and didn't buy into the mix of styles. Araki is playing with genre conventions here mixing the coming of age tale with other familiar thrillers, but it didn't work for me because the dialogue at times is unbelievable and Araki seems to be leaving us false hints of what actually happened only to pull the rug under us with a twist at the end of the film. White Bird in a Blizzard is based on Laura Kasischke's novel of the same name and was adapted by Araki himself. I've never read the novel so I don't know if it has a similar tone, but the film felt surreal at times. There are some great looking scenes during Kat's dream sequences, but there isn't much more going on story wise. It's funny because the plot of this film is what I thought The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby would be like. A woman goes missing and the film would revolve around the mystery behind her disappearance. Kat (Shailene Woodley) narrates the events of her mother's disappearance (Eva Green) claiming she had never been in love with her father, Brock (Christopher Meloni). Kat believes she simply got fed up with Brock and walked out on him. Her relationship with her mother hasn't been great either so she doesn't seem to mind her absence. She is comfortable with her current situation and doesn't think she even needs to talk to a psychologist about it. When she was young her mother treated her like a pet, but once she got older she began to resent her for her youth and beauty. Kat meanwhile is in a relationship with her next door neighbor, Phil (Shiloh Fernandez), who is her first love. Lately he hasn't seemed too interested in spending time with her, and when her mother goes missing, she and her father file a report with Detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane) who she finds attractive despite the age difference. Kat is very open with her two best friends, Beth (Gabourey Sidibe) and Mickey (Mark Indelicate) about her sexual life. There isn't very much going on with the plot since Kat doesn't think much about her mother's mysterious disappearance and we know how she feels because she is narrating the story to her psychiatrist. Things change when a few years pass and Kat returns home from college. She discovers that her mother's disappearance has affected her more than she realized and we begin to discover new elements about the mystery. This final act of the film plays out more as a traditional mystery movie and I was actually surprised with the final reveal. It is a shift of tone from what we had seen during the first half of the movie which played out as a coming of age sexual awakening tale. I can't recommend White Bird in a Blizzard, but it does have its moments. Shailene Woodley delivers a very strong performance (but I still think she was better in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now) and she is a talented young actress. I wasn't a fan of Eva Green's campy performance, but I have read some praise. Other than Woodley's performance I don't think there is much more worth recommending here.