Salutations™!!
The Less Desirables Movie of the Week, brought to you by a/perture Cinema, was 2012’s Jack & Diane. This is not to be confused with the classic song by John Cougar Mellencamp. The song was great. The film… well it was made.
I can’t really even tell you why I watched this film and afterwards I can’t tell you that it was good. IMDb‘s synopsis is as follows: “Diane’s feelings for Jack — the girl she met over the summer — begin to manifest themselves in terrifying ways when she learns that her friend will soon be moving away.” It’s also considered a romantic horror film. It stars Juno Temple as Diane and Karen and Riley Keough as Jack. Juno Temple has been in a lot of bit parts including The Dark Knight. Never heard of Riley Keough? Perhaps you’ve heard of her grandfather. He sometimes is/was known as the King of Rock & Roll. Yes, this is Elvis’ granddaughter. I’d never had known that from this film but all pictures I see of her, she looks just like Lisa Marie. She’s kind of butched out in this film, though.
So Diane is wandering about looking for her twin sister, Karen, and can’t get her on
the cellphone so she ducks into a store asking to use their phone. She seems a bit disheveled but that doesn’t stop Jack (short for Jacqueline, maybe?), who works at said store, from becoming taken by her. Diane, too, suffers from chronic nosebleeds and when she has one of those weird things happen. You see, she turns into some weird monster. That comes into play later. Oh yeah, Jack gets hit by a car, not critically, just scuffed a bit.
Diane lives with her aunt Linda who tries to constantly mother Diane and Diane doesn’t stand for it. They argue a lot. Linda seems not-to-thrilled to be taking care of Diane. Diane shows up at Jack’s house and the girls bond. Jack goes to Diane’s house and they argue. Linda comes home and upon Jack being a disrespectful little bitty to her, informs her that Diane will be leaving to go to school in France. This sets Jack off, thus the argument. Jack just leaves sending Diane off the deep end. Jack gets weird phone calls from Diane but it isn’t Diane (but is it Karen?).
Jack gets annoyed when Diane hangs out with Jack’s friend, Chris. Diane leaves when Jack gets upset. Later, Chris finds a video online of Diane’s twin sister, Karen, getting raped. This makes Jack feel bad and she reconciles with Diane. They spend several days together and then one night whilst sleeping Diane has a dream she turns into her nosebleed monster and eats Jack’s heart. As she wakes up, she realizes that Jack’s nose is bleeding. The days wind down to when Diane leaves and really, I can’t find anything of consequence that happened after that.
I don’t know what the point of this film was. I kept watching hoping something would happen, as it was supposed to be a “horror” film. I know that I should have given it the Eugene treatment and pulled an “E20” or exit after 20 minutes of dissatisfaction. Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 13% fresh and 21% user rating. I think that’s generous. It made a whopping $1,142 at the box office.
I think the monster is supposed to be the anxiety and slight neurosis that Diane has about moving. Why do we hear from her sister but not see her? Or do we? I don’t know. I couldn’t follow the film without answering emails or otherwise. I think it was more of “it’s gotta get better” or “where is this going?” I watched this on Netflix and I am actually abstaining from rating it. It’s worse than The Birds and if I’m going below 1.5 then I don’t need to even try to entice you to watch it. There are plenty of quality films on Netflix to watch, pick one, almost anything and stay clear of this one. It was written and directed by Bradley Rust Gray.
Have you seen it? Do you agree with me? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts and send me suggestions for future MotW!
Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!
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“I more than like you. I just wanna like unzip my body and put you in there.” – Jack (Riley Keough), Jack & Diane
