Georgia Rule (2007)

What a difference three years makes. Back in 2004 Lindsay Lohan was wickedly fresh as a daisy in the teenage drama "Mean Girls". Three years later in "Georgia Rule", I look at her and I ask myself, what happened? I mean she's still got some sort of physical attraction here, but compared to "Mean Girls", she looks jaded and looking like she's entering into a world of sorrow and lament. It feels like she's aged drastically. At the time Lohan was 21 years old, but in "Georgia Rule", she looks like she's aged to 31."Georgia Rule" is equally disjointed and out of focus as Lohan's physical presence. It's kind of a sinister, out of touch film that focuses primarily on three generations of the Wilcox/Randall family clan. Wehave the tough and disciplined grandmother Georgia Randall (Jane Fonda),the ever inebriated mother Lilly (Felicity Huffman) and the rebellious,sex-craving daughter, Rachel (Lohan). The idea of an out-of control daughter may have some levels of intrigue, but director Garry Marshall and screenwriter Mark Andrus turn a blind eye towards her incorrigible ways. Let alone the fact that Miss Lohan looks less like a teenager and more like a lounge singer playing Broadway musicals in karaoke bars.Maybe it might work in the Hollywood industry, but switch to reality for just a second, but if the opening scenes feature a teenage daughter, belittling, ostracizing and verbally bullying your own mother, you're all programmed to hate this snotty little punk. Oh, that's right, Rachel is an angry late adolescent who's so undisciplined that her mother made her leave her home in San Francisco to spend some time at grandma's house in Idaho, where she's hopes will set her straight. Where's the responsibility mom? Or is something I like to call an urban renewal?Does Grandma Georgia really need an incorrigible child placed at her doorstep? She's a women of moral restriction with an obsessive compulsiveness for tight, at the exact minute of scheduling, even though she seems lenient towards the neighborhood children. But she still dwells back to the fact her daughter's a drunk and her granddaughter is out-of-control and promiscuous. The purpose of this story is that in spite all their shortcomings, they love each other. But it's panned out in the cruelest of taste.The tone of the film is extremely jarring it left me wondering are these people for real? The movie was made to have a light drama with touches of comedy for good measure. But I felt very little in lightness or anything I could pass off as comical. This movie was cynical in approach and Marshall gave us the impression that his audience are as mixed up as the characters on screen.One supposed "funny" scene has Rachel making lustful passes with an overly religious Mormon named Harlan Wilson (Garrett Hedlund) then performing off camera oral sex. It gets better! There's a scene where she threatens these goody-goody Mormon girls to engage in lascivious relations with their boyfriends. In other words, be like her and you will be "cool". But is she "cool"? Not in the slightest, in fact I find her and her dysfunctional family nothing more than hypocrites who preach but don't practice.Here we have Rachel threatening these girls she will get all raunchy with their other halves and yet we get a revealing that Rachel's step-father, Arnold (Cary Elwes) sexually molested her. By now Lilly is now a full-blown inebriate. Which is strange because Grandma Georgia disallows alcoholism in her household and yet she's got shelves of booze to keep Lilly amused as she's lying in her underwear getting stewed. This is a horrible family with horrible people and it sickens me that Fonda, Huffman and Lohan are incredibly talented performers makes it even harder to swallow. It's not that they're wasting away here every foundation of this movie is based off of lies. It tries to be truthful, but fails at every attempt.The sexual abuse subplot is the the hardest one to take into account because of the hypocrisy that comes all around. We get cringing jokes about oral sex and yet you have Rachel, flaunting around town engaging in sexual activities with the town. But then we're supposed to feel sorry for her once the serious topic of sexual abuse comes around and we're forced into thinking she's just a poor lost soul. Like we should just forget about all the heartbreak Rachel has because we don't approve of her stepfather who sexually abused her when she was twelve.

Well, it was entertaining enough, but...This movie was marketed as a comedy, which is totally inaccurate since there are surprisingly few "funny" moments. For some people probably none at all.It was not the light-hearted comedy I thought it was going to be. It's quite a serious movie that deals with serious issues.Lindsay Lohan did a fine job... portraying her real-life self. She was so convincing as a spoiled stuck-up party girl because she didn't have to act.Also, there was zero chemistry between characters and you could actually tell that they can't stand / couldn't care less for each other. None of them seem to have bothered to "own" their respective roles; instead, they just showed up and did their jobs -- that's the vibe you get from this movie.Nevertheless, it's quite an O.K. movie -- for those interested in this genre (drama).

As a victim of abuse my self, I can well understand the denial of the mother, especially if she was already a boozer. The grandmother, so well played by Jane Fonda, obviously felt the guilt from turning her own child into an alcoholic, who then allowed this abuse to go on under her roof. She became the typical non-defending parent.The scene with Delmot Maroney (simon) in which he talks to her about the different kinds of love between an older man and a young woman (friend, parent) that differs from the abusive kind, rings quite true. Because, for people like us, it's hard to tell the difference as you emerge from your parental Hell.You only know how to relate in a sexual manner with any man. It takes a lot of education and experience to learn to appreciate and enjoy the other kinds of love and affection. Until then, it all seems fake. Don't know what the reviewers had to say about this, but I appreciate Jane and Gary for actually tackling such a loaded subject.

I was mislead like many others by the trailers. I thought it was going to be much more funny. This was definitely more drama than comedy. When I heard that it was based in Idaho I felt like I should go watch, just to see. I really wasn't sure I was going to like it because I am not one to like movies that they base in Idaho (i.e. Nepolean Dynamite). I am from Idaho...born and raised and so it sometimes feels like they are portraying us as strictly rednecks. Now don't get me wrong...being a redneck is never a bad thing, speaking from experience. It usually ends up being frustrating to see how they think we would act though. I watched this film and really enjoyed it. We weren't the backwards people we sometimes get made out to be. I thought it was very nicely done. It was nice to see that they showed the small town Idaho atmosphere.I only have one issue really with the movie. After I watched the DVD I watched the special features, like anyone normally does. I wasn't surprised to see that it hadn't been filmed at all in Idaho. Now maybe this seems like nitpicking but they should have done a bit more research on the area the town was suppose to be located in, and the actual amount of time it would take to go on the trip that Mulronneys character takes as well as the one that Hedlund and Lohan take. The town in the film is suppose to be located near Wallace, Idaho. Wallace is in northern Idaho, towards Kellogg and Coeur 'dAlene. That area is very different than the scenery that was shown in the film. There was too much sage brush and not enough pine trees. There is actually no sage brush near Wallace. Southern Idaho area near Boise has sage brush. Being what we call the high desert we have lots of that there.Also when the veterinarian (Dermott Mulronney) travels to Rexburg, Idaho, it was a bit far-fetched for me to believe that he made that trip as short as he made it sound like it would be. That trip is about 450 miles one way, that's the easiest way to get there. That trip would take about 7 hours one way. So for him to leave Hull and get to Rexburg in what he made it sound was just a couple of hours is really hard to believe. As well as the trip that Hedlund and Lohan make...would have been around 14 hours of just driving. I know that there aren't to many people outside of Idaho who would know that. But we do watch movies here in Idaho and when you base a movie here...chances are we are definitely going to watch it. I was disappointed with that part.Other than that small issue I thought that Marshall and the actors that he had did and very nice job. I was pleasantly surprised and went out later and bought the movie!