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| Three generations of graceful women stars collide on this drama-indicating poster for Guillermo Arriaga's The Burning Plain |
A young woman learns that her mother is cheating on her new husband. A middle-aged woman head-waitress has sex with random men and is about to meet a consequence of her past ...
The Burning Plain is the debut for writer-director Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams (2003), writer).
In the first story, set in New Mexico, Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone (2010)) is good as the distraught daughter, and Kim Basinger (The Informers (2008)) is excellent as the wife and mother, who has re-experienced joy and intimacy with warm Joaquim de Almeida (Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)). And Charlize Theron (Dark Places (2015)) is fascinating in the other story, which takes place up North, in Oregon.
Regrettably, it takes an awful long time before the connection between the two story planes became apparent to me, and then there's the issue of the film's tone, which is permanently set far beneath the floor-boards. unflinchingly dour. The Burning Plain is simply too plain.
SPOILER Theron is plagued at all times, and when her abandoned daughter enters the story, their interaction just isn't very natural, and the ending, in which it is indicated that Theron will now take part in the girl's life, therefore doesn't really settle convincingly.
Arriaga's only feature to date is an advanced bowl of tristesse.
Related posts:
Guillermo Arriaga: Babel (2006) or, Everyone's Connected (writer)
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life (writer)
Amores Perros (2000) or, People - Bad/Dogs - Good (writer)
Theron gives an interview about her work on the film here. The video has Spanish subtitles
Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 5.6 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[The Burning Plain premiered 29 August (Venice Film Festival, Italy) and runs 107 minutes. Shooting took place in New Mexico, Oregon, including Portland, and in Texas from November - December 2007. The film opened #46 to a small 58k $ first weekend in 21 theaters in North America, where it never conquered better numbers and only grossed 200k $ (3.6 % of the total gross). The 3 biggest markets were Italy with 1.8 mil. $ (32.1 %), Spain with 1 mil. $ (17.9 %) and France with 870k $ (15.5 %). The film won Lawrence an award in Venice. Arriaga has retreated from features since The Burning Plain and has instead worked on several short films, both as writer and director. Theron returned in The Road (2009); Basinger in While She Was Out (2008) and Lawrence in The Bill Engvall Show (2007-09) and theatrically in Winter's Bone (2010), her breakthrough. The Burning Plain is rotten at 36 % with a 4.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Burning Plain?
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