Normally when a film languishes in limbo for three years and then only receives a blink-and-you'll-miss it theatrical release there's something very wrong with it.
Daddy and Them , Billy Bob Thornton's follow-up to the well-received Sling Blade , is an exception. While treading much the same ground as it predecessor – albeit with a lighter, more comic tone – the quality of the writing and performances are such to make one wonder what studio politicking went on at Miramax.
The film centres on Claude Montgomery, played by Thornton himself. He's married to a younger woman, Ruby, who suspects that he is having an affair with her older sister, Rose. Claude, meanwhile, obsesses over his physique, worrying that Ruby will leave for some six-packed body-builder type if he doesn't stay in top condition.
The last thing the couple's relationship needs, then, is a long weekend with their respective in-laws and siblings. But that's exactly what happens when Claude's Uncle Hazel is arrested for armed robbery.
Their folks mean well, of course, but being dysfunctional, borderline alcholic rednecks inevitably means they are liable to do more harm than good…
Thornton's writing is well-observed, creating characters who, while embodying all the usual white trash traits – foul-mouthed, lacking in culture and social graces – also have a three-dimensional quality to them. You sense his ambiguity towards these people and that, from One False Move on, he has constantly been wrestling, as performer, writer and director, over how to honestly represent the redneck (originally a neutral term, but one that has generally developed strong negative connotations subsequently) in a Hollywood that rarely looks beyond ethnic and cultural stereotypes.
As director his approach is simple and unobtrusive, letting the fine dialogue and performances carry the film. With good to excellent acting all round, it's hard to single out anyone, be it Thornton himself; Laura Dern and (her real-life mother) Diane Ladd as his wife and mother-in-law ; Andy Griffith as the head of the Montgomery clan, or Brenda Blethyn as the English outsider who has married into the clan and now wonders what she has let herself in for, though it one had to choose it would be the late Jim Varney, who steals the show as Uncle Hazel.
While perhaps a little too slow moving for its own good at times – you can imagine the Jack Daniels man doing a "things are leisurely here" voiceover – Daddy and Them is an acutely observed and entertaining slice of life drama that has enough of that good ol' boy charm to win through in the end.
There really isn't much that can be said about this Region 2 DVD from Buena Vista. The transfer has been sourced from a more or less pristine print, but looks to have some difficulties coping with the finer details in the character' patterned shirts and the like, while the dialogue and music (two sorts – country and western) are clear throughout.
The disc has no language options, with the result that one doesn't get the opportunity to hear what Arkansas rednecks sound like when dubbed into French or German.
There are no extras, not even a trailer for the film. Well, there is a trailer reel that plays at the start in that annoying video type way, but it's not for the film so I wasn't about to watch it…
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
5.0 / 5
(1 vote)
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