Jayne Mansfield's Car (2013)

Terrible title as it has little to do with the movie and a terribly tepid film directed and jointly written by Billy Bob Thornton.Robert Duvall is Jim Caldwell. A Great War veteran and a patriarch of a well to do Alabama family in the late 1960s, who spends his time visiting automobile accidents which the local police are happy to oblige him with.Duvall has three sons who served in World War 2. Skip (Billy Bob Thornton) and Carroll (Kevin Bacon) seem to spend their time drinking beer, smoking dope and arguing. Both have to deal with the scars of the war. Bacon is the wild one, even though he has a son at college, he is anti Vietnam war protester and regularly gets in trouble with the police that upsets his father. The conservative Jimbo (Robert Patrick) seems to to be only responsible one. Their sister Donna is married to an ex football star but seems to be promiscuous.The Caldwell's meet the Bedford family from England. The reason being that Jim's former wife has died and wants to be buried in Alabama. She has been living in England and was married to Kingsley Bedford (John Hurt) and he is accompanied by his two grown up children from his first marriage.Of course there is some hesitancy between the two families because of the strained past but as they get to know each other we find out that Hurt's children are also have a dysfunctional relationship with their father which results in the daughter getting involved in some kinkiness with Skip and the son having a liaison with Donna.The film is a shambles, it kind of rambles without much focus. There is some good acting especially from Duvall and Hurt whose characters bond as they go to see Mansfield's wreck in a store. However the film itself is a bit of a car crash.

It's 1969 Morrison, Alabama. The Caldwell clan has 3 brothers Skip (Billy Bob Thornton), Carroll (Kevin Bacon), Jimbo (Robert Patrick), sister Donna (Katherine LaNasa), and patriarch Jim (Robert Duvall). The men are all veterans of various wars. When Jim's ex-wife and mother to the 'kids' die, her present husband Kingsley Bedford (John Hurt) and the Bedford family Phillip Bedford (Ray Stevenson), Camilla Bedford (Frances O'Connor) comes over from London to bury her back home in Alabama. The two families try to deal with the estranged relationships against a backdrop of volatile outside world of Vietnam and inner worlds. Jim is fascinated with car crashes. When a nearby town has a side show displaying Jayne Mansfield's car that she died in, Jim Caldwell takes Kingsley Bedford along for a look.This movie is jam packed with great actors but they keep getting into each other's way. Writer/director Billy Bob Thornton lets this assemble of talents go off on their own and loses any structure or narrative. There is a lack of clarity. It needs to tell us clearly that the kids aren't actually related early and often. There is also a plodding pace to it all. They are moseying along and every once in awhile, there is an amazing scene between some of these great actors. The movie is just too uneven with the splintered groups garnering different levels of interest.

This comes across as if it were written for the stage. I beg to differ with those who think this an accurate portrayal of the people and situations of the time and place. Not even close. I done been there then. Open on the setting of the entire movie. Small town Alabama in 1969. A family whose patriarch was once married to a woman that left him and married an Englishman twenty years before receives the news she has died. Also, her body accompanied by her widower husband and HIS family is coming back to Alabama for burial. Score ten points if you say this is the type of "Set-up" that multiple black comedies and more recently many more Black as in African American Comedies have been built around. This is neither. I don't honestly know whether that sentence should have started with "Unfortunately".As a result of this event the American family is brought together and many old wounds, scars and stories surface. SPOILER: The two families couple with one another like a group of drunken speed freaks playing spin the bottle at a company picnic for Searle. Well, not quite. They blather about endlessly before, after and instead of. Hey, that IS how I remember speed parties, more talking than poking. At one point Silly Bob Thornton takes off all his clothes in the woods showing what are supposed to be the 80 percent burns he suffered in a WW2 plane crash -- certain the best technique for getting some "pity p***y" I have ever seen. Finally -- and we should be thankful they don't introduce a GAY sex scene here --- VERY VERY grateful..... Robert Duvall and John Hurt, who both are widower of the same woman become bosom buddies. Remember that is just an expression. Pals. Pals with 160 some odd years between them. They take a ride over to see the eponymous Car. Whole scene could be left out, no excuse for it. Like that big ugly seed inside a Mango nobody would miss it were it not there.Next morning, they head out into the nearby forests for a bit of out of season hunting unaware that Duvall has been given some LSD in his iced tea. Now, as someone who used to sell the stuff and has taken hundreds of trips with dosages many times those used by mere mortals I can say that the Acid Trip experience of Mister Duvall is the most accurate portrayal I have ever seen in Cinema. I would guess that he, also, has left this world of Newtonian certainties more than once. Oh, that I could find a ticket today. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Who cares? Tim Leary... Timmy.... Timmy.... My kingdom for a Collie -- a transcendental Lassie to fetch you back... Timmy .... Timmy.... Oh, the movie ends.Like that.

"It's not gonna kill you to talk to your kids pops. You might be surprised what happens." A family that is already at odds with each other is dealt another big blow. Their mother, who they haven't seen in a long time (because she moved to England and remarried) has died and wishes to be buried in Alabama. To make matters worse her new family is coming as well and the old and new meet for the first time. This is a difficult movie to explain. It's not bad but it's not that good either. The acting is great but the story is weak. There doesn't seem to be a flow from one scene to the other but I stayed interested. The movie is really one big contradiction to itself. If you watch it you will see what I mean. I will say that I thought the movie was OK but nothing I would watch again or bring up in the "have you seen this lately" conversation, but on the other hand it is full of some great acting and it's worth seeing for that reason alone. This is nothing more then a family trying to figure itself out and Duvall plays the same part he did in Slingblade...but this time he talks. Overall, a hard movie to explain because nothing really happens but I did think it was OK. Watch it and you will see what I mean, but it's hard to recommend. I give it a B-.