Leading Ladies: February 2006

Freedomland

Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, Ron Eldard, William Forsythe
Director: Joe Roth
Rating: R

A terrific Richard Price novel provided the material for this drama about a woman who may not be telling the truth about her child's kidnapper, setting off a major racial divide in a New Jersey town. The movie, however, is one major clunker, say this week's female critics.

The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday writes, "This would have made a fascinating film if [it] were one movie. Instead, it turns into several movies, none fully realized. What could have been an unusually smart police procedural becomes a sprawling, overwrought melodrama that itself morphs into a sort of spiritual romance."

And the distaste for the movie abounds. The Austin Chronicle's Marjorie Baumgarten says, "The problem lies not in the plotting alone. Roth's direction does nothing to bring clarity to the story and its characters, and his blocking of the film's action scenes is downright muddled and vague." The Los Angeles Times's Carina Chocano says of Julianne Moore, "it would be interesting to see her take on a contemporary role in which she isn't exalted, degraded or, worse, artificially cutes-ified. It's as if her talent had consigned her to the most showboaty roles, when the greatest thing would be to see her play a person again." LA Weekly's Ella Taylor agrees with the consensus: "Ordinarily it's kind of hard to screw up a Richard Price story, but the writer is his own worst enemy here, with a screenplay so filled with bromides and object lessons from God, you can't tell what he's trying to say."

The New York Times's Manohla Dargis concurs, "An early candidate for worst film of the year is Freedomland, an inept, lethally dull drama."

Female consensus: Remain free of Freedomland, the movie version, anyway

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