Georgia Rule was hosed by the critics and was rated the second worst movie of 2007 by that bastion of all things good taste, AOL. It should be noted that on AOL’s best of 2007 list, they included Transformers and placed Walk Hard ahead of There Will Be Blood. You decide. Georgia Rule stars Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Lohan as three generations of a troubled family with a hell of a messy history.
Lohan is Rachel, a rebellious teenager from California. She’s on a trip to stay with her grandmother, Georgia (Fonda) in Idaho. Rachel and her mother, Lily (Huffman) are making the trek to Idaho when Rachel has another fight with her mother and walks the rest of the way to Georgia’s house. Once there, things are done Georgia’s way (Georgia rule!) and Rachel is given a job with a local veterinarian, Simon Ward (Dermot Mulroney). She also meets a nice Mormon boy, Harlan (Garrett Hedlund) and begins to tempt the poor boy with her wily female ways before he heads off on a mission trip.
Of course, something is certainly “wrong” with Rachel and her relationship with her mother is less than ideal, to say the least. The main focus of the film is finding out just what is wrong with Rachel and how she came to be the rebellious sexpot 17-year-old she is. We learn of abuse, neglect, and a host of other issues. Rachel’s way of dealing with the horrors of her life is to laugh it off and party it up, a notion that bothered the critics but actually isn’t too far from many cases in real life. Rachel’s life is chaotic, but it seems she thrives on it and has developed herself into a tempestuous weapon who gets what she wants by showing off her body.
The film’s development is rather odd, as it shifts back and forth from comedy to drama rather suddenly and jerkily. Nevertheless, it reflects the oddity of life in a way and does a nice job of using its pacing to throw curveballs at the viewer. There’s nothing too slapsticky about the comedy, either, and Garry Marshall’s direction leaves the goofy stuff aside. The humour is of the ilk that comes out of desperation and despair, when there’s nothing else to do but laugh. We feel for Rachel because she resonates with our basest instincts in a way. She claims to have had a terrible life, but chides Simon (who has lost his wife and son in an accident) for feeling “so damn bad about it.”
In that respect, there really is no other way to handle Georgia Rule. These are spicy, troubled, loud, boisterous women. The film should reflect that and Marshall ensures that it does. It makes sense for Georgia to chase Rachel’s stepfather (Cary Elwes) with a baseball bat and threaten to bash the hell out of his Ferrari. It makes sense for Mormons to chase Rachel around town and call her a “slut” because she entices them by threatening to steal their boyfriends. The absurdities make sense because the world in which Georgia, Lily, and Rachel live is absurd.
The performances here are all very good, as one might expect. Lohan is especially good in what is probably her best film performance to date. She captures Rachel eloquently, doing justice to all of the vulnerability and scorching sensuality of the character. Lohan looks stunning, too, and much is made of the way she manipulates men. There are many scenes of seduction in Georgia Rule that provide the odd combination of sadness and sexuality, the perfect mixture for one such as Lindsay Lohan. Fonda and Huffman have great chemistry together, too, and the supporting cast is solid.
Overall, Georgia Rule deserves a look because of its poignant and gritty portrayal of the lives of three women in trouble. Each woman is heavily flawed and the film makes no attempt to wrap things up with a carbon copy happy ending. Despite the film’s humour and convoluted final act, I’m recommending Georgia Rule for a solid performance from Lindsay Lohan and very good performances from Fonda and Huffman.
6/10
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