The Movie Whore Likes The Ballad of Jack and Rose

I will see a movie simply to watch Daniel Day-Lewis, which is the reason I rented The Ballad of Jack and Rose yesterday.



I knew, after watching a Charlie Rose interview with Daniel Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller, that this movie might be too close to my own life for comfort. Would it force me to examine my isolated-outsider-rebellious-social critic-home birthing-eco warrior- antisocial-back to nature-intellectually yearning-self and how my life choices have effected those around me, especially my children? Well of course, and since I am a glutton for punishment, bring it on.

A stringy Daniel Day-Lewis in dense Scottish accent plays Jack, the last holdout of a former island commune off the East Coast. He's an angry, uneasy man, particularly irked by a land developer (Beau Bridges) encroaching on his untamed wilderness.

With a bad ticker, Jack's days are winding down just as his ripe daughter, Rose (Camilla Belle), is getting to that certain age. Jack and Rose have always been close, perhaps too close.

Jack's ideals lead him to some -really bad decisions, as when he ropes in a casual lover (Catherine Keener) and her two warring boys to form an instant family for Rose — who sensibly rebels, but in hair-raising ways.

- Jami Bernard, Daily News Movie Reviews

Like Dead Man and Million Dollar Baby, this movie deals with a character's approach to death. Rose, having lived an isolated existence with her father, creates her own coping ritual as he dies and in so doing becomes her father's guide into the next world. All of the life decisions that effected his daughter's ability to live in the world are dealt with at some level during this ritual process and as Jack is forced to face his fears and self-doubt Rose is carried forward.

I know. I could probably find a way to fit just about anything into my "death ritual" theme lately. It is good to think about dying not only as preparation for physical death, but also for guidance during all of the beginnings and endings that we experience in our lifetime, all of the symbolic deaths and rebirths that we pass through as we grow and change.

Jack, in a self-relevatory moment with a McMansion land developer on his island who threatened his insulated existence said something like, "We aren't so different after all." He saw in his desire to have things his own way his failure to provide his daughter with the skills and knowledge she needed to live in the world. Don't all parents walk this line? How do we balance our criticism and rejection of a world with which we don't approve with our child's need to function in that world? The consequences of that balancing act can be profound.