Lawn Dogs (1997)

Mischa Barton really blew me away in this film. I usually don't care much for child actors, and I went into this film thinking that way. But Barton seemed, with few exceptions, to BE her character. But there's a lot more than just pretty good acting from a precocious child. Barton was a major league charmer. You just couldn't take your eyes off her whenever she was on-screen. Sam Rockwell was decent, and no one else really showed much except maybe Angie Harmon in a small part. (She did have a rare topless scene in this film) But most of the characters do weird things, with no tie-in at all to any reason for their conduct. I think this may be thought by some to be character development, but I think it is either laziness or insufficiently imaginative screenwriters. But in any case you should check out this film just to see Barton. Grade: B

Fmovies: 'Lawn Dogs' may well be the best movie to come out of America this decade. It's a film that lazily unravels itself, yet succeeds in impacting like a sledgehammer, and does so in such a perfect, unforced and magical way that the experience of viewing it leaves the movie goer completely fulfilled, perhaps like no other film ever has before it.

Even more intriguing is the difficulty one has at distinguishing exactly why it is that this film works so flawlessly and just how such a slow moving film can leave a person so thoroughly energized and rejuvenated.

Only a few movies of recent times have even come close to carrying off this irony- think 'Fargo' or better still, 'Love Serenade' (interestingly and perhaps not coincidentally also directed by an Australian).

Every single element of 'Lawn Dogs' is magical. From the direction, cinematography, music and fairytale infused storyline which deals with the universally important issues of friendship, self-identity, family, community and class divisions, to the powerhouse performances from the two lead performers and amazing supporting cast.

John Diugan has demonstrated with 'Lawn Dogs' that he is indeed a true alchemist of the film world that can mix and dabble with the elements to produce pure, solid gold.

I am baptized in the blood, `bathtubs full,' of wild dogs, chicken dinners, and a little fairy princess. Last night I viewed "Lawn Dogs" for the second time in 5 days. I just couldn't return the tape without another look-see, even if it makes Block Buster $2 richer and me $2 poorer, for the awareness and inspiration this fairy-tale masterpiece has imbued me with are priceless. Like Trent in the film, I am alive with the hope that flight from any kind of poverty, financial or spiritual, is possible.

On the surface, the story seems to revolve around the relationship between a young man, Trent, and a little girl, Devon, and between the two struggling economic classes that they come from. But the magical cinematography throughout the film, and more than that, Devon's running fairy-tale narration, allude to a deeper meaning in the film that is revealed absolutely in the last five minutes. After all, there is nothing in the world around us that is not represented by symbols within us, and how can we tell whether the inner symbols we deal with represent things outside us, or things within us? It is natural for the world to discourage a relationship between a sexually-active male, and a prepubescent, vulnerable, hungry-for-friends female. It is also natural for the world to discourage an individual from relating to the power within himself, perhaps represented by said young female, to imagine and pursue a better life for himself, when it means he will flee the status quo that makes the rest of the world comfortable.

The setting is a highly artificial, unabashedly bourgeois, gated community in Kentucky, `Camelot Gardens' (see, we're already alluding to fairy tales), and the surrounding countryside, wherein Trent lives in a trailer, making, what can loosely be called, a "living" by mowing the lawns of the rich in Camelot Gardens. The two heroes first meet when Devon happens upon Trent's trailer while wandering into the woods to sell cookies (her capitalist parents' idea), reciting to herself a version of the Russian fairy-tale about the contest between a little girl, like herself, and the witch named `Baba Yaga.' She continues her relationship with the at-first-reluctant Trent, as he continues to mow her parents' lawn. Whom she identifies Baba Yaga with, that is, who is evil in the world, evolves with the story. In the end, she realizes where the true evil lies, and uses the magic charms of her youthful idealism to aid the flight of the oppressed.

I really enjoyed this film. It not only inspires hope, but also possesses a depth sorely lacking in the majority of American films. Much of the symbolism in the story seems to be lifted directly from classical mythology: From the open nakedness of both heroes in the beginning, a necessary reduction of the self to its bare essentials before it can be remade into something new, Trent holding up traffic to dive naked from a one-lane bridge into the local river, a kind of spectacular baptism into a new beginning, and Devon removing her nightgown to bay from her rooftop, like some essential mythic beast imploring the gods of night; to the adorning, i.e. honoring, of the tree outside the door of Trent's trailer, the Sacred Tree, Ygdrasil, the Tree of Life, so honoring life itself, and the demands that life makes of us; to the maenadic frenzy of the dancing chicken feet, a maddening after-chicken-death/chicken-dinner dithyramb; to Trent's conquest over the infernal hound, a Doberman named `Tracker,' wh

Lawn Dogs fmovies. From the picture on the cover (see the picture on the main details page!) and reading the back of the video jacket for this movie, I expected this to be a film about suburban wives sleeping with the hired help. Nope. It's a movie about a slightly sick [in the mental and physical sense] young girl [about 10 or 11 years old?] who befriends one of the guys hired to mow the lawns in her gated community. While the guy is reluctant at first, the friendship that forms between them is actually fun to watch. That's what makes the movie interesting. But while the end has to do with the class system talked about on the video jacket, this is a story about the girl and her "lawn dog" friend, with the parents and their repressive lifestyle being almost incidental to the story until the end. This is an interesting movie to watch, but I wish the people who write the blurbs on the video jackets would actually WATCH the movies once in a while.

LAWN DOGS

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

The haves and have-nots are put under the microscope in John Duigan's diverting drama LAWN DOGS, and it's the haves who come up wanting in every respect. Sam Rockwell (CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND) is the penniless gardener-cum-handyman who makes a fragile living tending the lawns of contemptuous rich folk, all of whom view him with deep suspicion whilst indulging their own dubious peccadilloes behind closed doors. Mischa Barton (THE SIXTH SENSE, TV's "The O.C.") is a lonely 10 year old girl who's been shielded from the world by her wealthy parents following a recent health scare (she has a faulty heart), but she dares to strike up a friendship with Rockwell after stumbling onto his ramshackle home in the woods, a friendship which she pursues against Rockwell's wishes, until their 'secret' is forced into the open and grossly misinterpreted by Barton's vengeful family.

While the moneyed set lives in antiseptic splendour and conceals its hypocrisy behind security measures of every description, Rockwell's character enjoys an open life in a beautiful forest environment, like the witch Baba Yaga in Barton's favourite fairy tale. In fact, there's a magical, otherworldly quality to much of the film (rendered explicit in the final reel), though the central narrative is fairly low-key and revolves around Rockwell's frequent encounters with the dissolute low-lifes who dare to think themselves superior. With his wiry frame and white trash southern accent, Rockwell strikes something of a romantic figure (watch out for his full-frontal nude scene early in the film), though he never stoops to eccentricity or excess. For one so young, Barton is excellent in such a demanding role, and she holds her own against an experienced adult cast (including Christopher McDonald and Kathleen Quinlan as Barton's narrow-minded parents, and Eric Mabius as the rich jock who can barely conceal his attraction to Rockwell). Beautiful cinematography by Elliot Davis (KING OF THE HILL).

This superb film, directed by John Duigan, the gifted director of THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE, is about a friendship between a young girl (Mischa Barton of "The OC") and a free-spirited young, adult man (Sam Rockwell).

It's self-aware enough to acknowledge the inherent sensitivity of its subject matter, but it doesn't cave into conservative conclusions about how such a relationship ought to be portrayed.

At heart, LAWN DOGS is about trust, not the death of innocence or the festering political correctness all around us that sees danger in every unconventional relationship. It does touch on the subject of sexual abuse, but it doesn't come at it from the angle you'd suspect...and that's the whole point, isn't it? Sexual abuse, for the most part, usually visits as someone you've known well enough to trust completely.

Beyond its politics, this is a unique, bracing fantasy that is more European than American (or Australian) in its view world both morally and visually. The climax is an unexpected treat and its moral resolution arrives just in the nick of time.

Sumptuously photographed and written with great intelligence by Naomi Wallace, it dares to be erotic, provoking, unconventional and incisive.

Don't pass it up if you get an offer.