Film Review: Tumbleweeds
Film: Tumbleweeds (1999). Young Actress: Kimberly J. Brown, age 14.
It's hard to discuss Tumbleweeds without bringing up a similar film, Anywhere But Here. Released just a few months apart in 1999, both movies tell the story of a daydreaming single mom and her practical daughter who make a new life for themselves in California. Anywhere has a rather meandering plot, but it's smart enough and the two lead actresses give excellent performances. Tumbleweeds basically does the opposite: it has a more cohesive storyline, but it tells that story with two average actresses and a lot of cliches and predictability. You could guess from the title and tagline ("They ran away from everything but each other") that Mary Jo (Janet McTeer, Tideland) and her 12-year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly) will settle down by the end of the film - and they do, of course.
The film's biggest flaw is that the characters aren't likeable or well-written, which makes it hard to care what happens to them. Mary Jo is too immature, Ava is too whiny, and both of them tell way too many tasteless jokes. There's farting, boob jokes, crotch-grabbing, coffee enemas, Southern stereotypes, mimicking Asian people - all of which Mary Jo and Ava laugh at hysterically. Mary Jo's two boyfriends are both completely undeveloped: one is so obviously the bad guy that Mary Jo and Ava can't even order food in a resteraunt without him yelling at them, and the other is so obviously the good guy that he enters his first scene quoting Shakespeare. It's clear from that first scene that he and Mary Jo will end up together - and they do, of course. Janet McTeer was nominated for an Oscar for this movie, so maybe there's something in her performance that I'm just not seeing... or maybe Best Actress was just a weak field that year.
For no reason, Ava and her best friend Zoe (Ashley Buccille) make a donut cake for Mary Jo.
Kimberly is cute as Ava, but her performance isn't enough to make the movie worth watching. She definitely overacts, but I imagine that poor directing is to blame for that, as well as for many of the film's flaws.
It's hard to discuss Tumbleweeds without bringing up a similar film, Anywhere But Here. Released just a few months apart in 1999, both movies tell the story of a daydreaming single mom and her practical daughter who make a new life for themselves in California. Anywhere has a rather meandering plot, but it's smart enough and the two lead actresses give excellent performances. Tumbleweeds basically does the opposite: it has a more cohesive storyline, but it tells that story with two average actresses and a lot of cliches and predictability. You could guess from the title and tagline ("They ran away from everything but each other") that Mary Jo (Janet McTeer, Tideland) and her 12-year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly) will settle down by the end of the film - and they do, of course.
The film's biggest flaw is that the characters aren't likeable or well-written, which makes it hard to care what happens to them. Mary Jo is too immature, Ava is too whiny, and both of them tell way too many tasteless jokes. There's farting, boob jokes, crotch-grabbing, coffee enemas, Southern stereotypes, mimicking Asian people - all of which Mary Jo and Ava laugh at hysterically. Mary Jo's two boyfriends are both completely undeveloped: one is so obviously the bad guy that Mary Jo and Ava can't even order food in a resteraunt without him yelling at them, and the other is so obviously the good guy that he enters his first scene quoting Shakespeare. It's clear from that first scene that he and Mary Jo will end up together - and they do, of course. Janet McTeer was nominated for an Oscar for this movie, so maybe there's something in her performance that I'm just not seeing... or maybe Best Actress was just a weak field that year.
For no reason, Ava and her best friend Zoe (Ashley Buccille) make a donut cake for Mary Jo.
Kimberly is cute as Ava, but her performance isn't enough to make the movie worth watching. She definitely overacts, but I imagine that poor directing is to blame for that, as well as for many of the film's flaws.