White Bird in a Blizzard (2014)

When a 15 years old teen, fan of John Waters and David Lynch is given way to much money and power to make his first film, that gives WHITE BIRD IN THE BLIZZARD. ... what a pompous title!! ... EXCEPT that Greg Araki is no longer a teen and it's not his first film even if that directing is spoiled with amateurism!! Every section of the film- making is crap here!! The shot are static and for no reason, the editing is lame (Yeah we get that!! Next shot!! ... too late.), the make up is dreadful: either it's Shaleen Woodley teen character who wakes up with the thickest make up on, either it's all female character who looks like whores!! Why? Does the director suggest that all women are prostitutes? Or maybe he doesn't know that all the decision he makes should means something for the film? Why putting this ridiculous wig on the father's head? I'll tell you why, the director thought it was funny. Yeah, the director mocks his actors, so the character, so he acts against the film!! And sometimes it's just lame directing: In one dream the teen see her mom with no hands she says EXCEPT THAT WE DO SEE THE PHALANX UNDER THE SLEEVES before the close up where the hands had been digitally removed!!!! And beyond the dreadful directing there is the dreadful directing!! Which is unable to create any kind of attachment with the main character. I talk to a girl who loved the film. I ask her to give one, only one adjective on the main character she just spent 1h30 with... she couldn't. I don't blame the actress (i went for her) but her character is just not written!! And taking Eva Green to play Woodley's mom when they are 11 years apart? Hey, don-t worry, just trust the make up team who transform any girl into a whore!!!! Even the set department put so much in the "hey did you notice that we are in the 80's???!!" And vulgar!! Because everything is vulgar in this film, the set, the clothing (poor Sidibe) the make up of course, the way Woodley has to say "fuck" every 2 words to tell the audience that she is a teen, everything is vulgar in this film!! And on the top of everything, i read that Woodley was very uncomfortable for the sex scene. So the director was also unable to create a safe or fun environment for his actors!! Maybe it's because he mocks them on screen and that he does what ever he wants alone with no regards for the film or his co-workers!! To conclude i'll just say: Greg Araki: No more!!!!

Fmovies: According to Robert McKee, in a movie, the main character must have a goal. At the beginning, the audience must empathize with the character and understand her enough to wish that she achieves her goal. "White Bird in a Blizzard" is very slow in its first half. Then, 2 years passes, the character grows up, and suddenly she gets a goal: she wants to understand what happened to her mother.

The puzzle is reduced by the teenager flashbacks, her perceptions of her mother, her dreams. Too much information that could have been reduced to increase the mystery, it's placed to show a teenager point of view. That is supposed to be a careless behavior of a girl that is unaware of the main information that solves the puzzle, a girl that is comfortable with her mother disappearance and thinks she knows enough.

Actually, the first half contradicts the essence of a movie, maybe because it's based on a book, a kind of art that brings the audience to drama. The mystery plot serves the drama, to bring a "coming of age" kind of story.

If you like mysteries, you won't like this movie. You will sleep on the first part. You will wonder what her goal is.

If you watch it as a "coming of age" story, you will miss in the character a little sadness, just her like shrink. Kat is not really affected. She cares so little, she has no goal, not until the mystery engages. And this is not how movies work well.

This movie starts off slowly. It is in the perspective of a gorgeous teenager who is solely concerned with her boyfriend. When her mom goes missing, she assumes that her mom kept her promise to leave her dad. As she recaps the relationship between her parents, the viewer is compelled to feel sorry for the wimpy father and agree with the teen's apathy towards her aggressive mother. In utter dismissal of her mom's abandonment, the teenager tries to focus on her boyfriend's reduced sexual interest. However, her intuition about her mother's disappearance keeps alerting her through inexplicable dreams. Then, when the teenager becomes an adult, things get GOOD! At the end, I realized that I really underestimated this movie. I had no idea this movie was going to be this good. I am glad I watched it and I want to see it again in order to catch some clues that I may have missed. The plot twist at the end REALLY caught me off-guard and I am still wondering if there was some hint throughout the movie that I missed. If anyone catches the hints, be sure to post them as spoilers.

White Bird in a Blizzard fmovies. "Nice-to-watch-on-a-Sunday-afternoon-if you-don't-have-anything- better-to-do." kind of movie. I liked the photography, the soundtrack, and scenography, though. Not so much the plot which is a poor vehicle for what the central idea of the movie is or tries to be. The acting wasn't exactly Oscar material either, specially the girl playing Cat. I couldn't hate her and I couldn't feel any sympathy for her either. She was just annoying and that detracts a lot from the message that the film as a whole seeks to deliver. They could have cast a different actress who was able to add more depth to the character and not make it appear so trivial, Shailene Woodley just confused indifference with shallowness, two different concepts. The plot reveals itself early, no need to be particularly observant to imagine what could have happened and there are many obvious reasons for that, however the motive that set in motion the events resulted a bit less predictable and those turned out to be the only 2min out of 91min of film that I found somewhat interesting.

"And just like that, my virginity disappeared. Just like my mother."

I did not make that quote up; Shailene Woodley's character (Kat Connors) actually says this while she narrates her life to a psychologist played by Angela Bassett. I wasn't familiar with director Gregg Araki's previous work, but I found this mysterious thriller problematic and at odds with itself. On the one hand it focuses on Kat's sexual awakening, but on the other we are introduced with some cartoonish characters like Eva Green's Eve Connors who seems to be playing a similar role as she did in 300 and Sin City. She gives a very campy performance, while Woodley is playing an authentic character. I just found the tone of the film very strange and didn't buy into the mix of styles. Araki is playing with genre conventions here mixing the coming of age tale with other familiar thrillers, but it didn't work for me because the dialogue at times is unbelievable and Araki seems to be leaving us false hints of what actually happened only to pull the rug under us with a twist at the end of the film. White Bird in a Blizzard is based on Laura Kasischke's novel of the same name and was adapted by Araki himself. I've never read the novel so I don't know if it has a similar tone, but the film felt surreal at times. There are some great looking scenes during Kat's dream sequences, but there isn't much more going on story wise.

It's funny because the plot of this film is what I thought The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby would be like. A woman goes missing and the film would revolve around the mystery behind her disappearance. Kat (Shailene Woodley) narrates the events of her mother's disappearance (Eva Green) claiming she had never been in love with her father, Brock (Christopher Meloni). Kat believes she simply got fed up with Brock and walked out on him. Her relationship with her mother hasn't been great either so she doesn't seem to mind her absence. She is comfortable with her current situation and doesn't think she even needs to talk to a psychologist about it. When she was young her mother treated her like a pet, but once she got older she began to resent her for her youth and beauty. Kat meanwhile is in a relationship with her next door neighbor, Phil (Shiloh Fernandez), who is her first love. Lately he hasn't seemed too interested in spending time with her, and when her mother goes missing, she and her father file a report with Detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane) who she finds attractive despite the age difference. Kat is very open with her two best friends, Beth (Gabourey Sidibe) and Mickey (Mark Indelicate) about her sexual life. There isn't very much going on with the plot since Kat doesn't think much about her mother's mysterious disappearance and we know how she feels because she is narrating the story to her psychiatrist. Things change when a few years pass and Kat returns home from college. She discovers that her mother's disappearance has affected her more than she realized and we begin to discover new elements about the mystery. This final act of the film plays out more as a traditional mystery movie and I was actually surprised with the final reveal. It is a shift of tone from what we had seen during the first half of the movie which played out as a coming of age sexual awakening tale. I can't recommend White Bird in a Blizzard, but it does have its moments. Shailene Woodley delivers a very strong performance (but I still think she was better

I completely enjoyed this film and am looking forward to watching it again. I enjoy Gregg Araki's work because it's always a bit strange, and this film is no exception. Everyone acts a little weird and does a great job of it. A few of the script lines had me laughing out loud. The pacing is stop and go so be prepared for that. In addition, there are some things that might not make sense, so if you like things to be all set up in the correct compartments, forget it. Essentially, a lot of Araki's films are about getting out of the comfort zone. Obviously this creates a lot of anxiety among motion picture producers and even more so amongst the viewers of his films. The fact that this film exists at all is a testament to the perseverance of a director with a unique skew on the world and the gift of being able to capture it.