Lisa (Anna Paquin) is a teenager in New York City who attends a private prep school. She distracts a city bus driver to the extent that he runs a red light and kills a pedestrian. The scenes leading up to and including that event are well filmed, with the accident itself presented in grisly detail. Lisa lies to the investigating detective saying that the light was green. Just why she lied is not clear--she says to protect the driver. After the accident the story follows Lisa as she tries to deal with her feelings of guilt over the matter. The effect on her is to transform her from being a typically insolent, precocious teen to being exceptionally petulant and annoying. Paquin does a good job of portraying smoldering disdain, an attitude that provokes most interactions she has with others to quickly escalate into major shouting matches. If you prefer to tolerate histrionic teenage angst in small doses, then you may have trouble with this movie.
There were some potentially good moments to be had in the exchanges among the students in Lisa's classrooms, particularly between Lisa and a Middle Eastern woman. But Lisa's intemperate verbal attacks abort any rational discussion, to the detriment of the class as well as the audience of this movie. The event in Lisa's English literature class that had the teacher read the Poem, "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins was also a missed opportunity. The poem is particularly relevant to the story (after all the title of the movie is taken from the woman mentioned in it), but after the reading there is no discussion that could have illuminated the poem's meaning and its fitness to Lisa's situation. When Lisa was called on to respond to the reading, I sympathized with her blank stare. It is unreasonable to expect someone to grasp the meaning of that obscure poem on a quick first reading, at least it was for me. For example, what is to be made of the first two lines, "Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?" The poem is worthy of study, if you care to look it up.
The talents of Matthew Broderick and Matt Damon are pretty much wasted in their minor roles as teachers.
As the movie moves along too many subplots develop, like Lisa's seduction of Damon (highly unbelievable), her mother's boyfriend dying of a heart attack, and the relationship between Lisa and her father in California. There is one fatal plot flaw. The accident occurred on a busy New York City intersection and after the accident there were at least a couple dozen people who quickly gathered around. Are we to believe that not one of those people witnessed the accident?
The movie seems to be trying to say something about post 9/11 America. At the risk of reading more into it than what was intended I could see the bus as symbolizing the US that was paying attention to frivolous distractions while ignoring red lights (remember the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in the President's Daily Brief of Auguat, 2011) and driving into the Iraq war, killing many people and resulting in a protracted period of anguished coming to terms.
A more focused presentation could have made this a good movie.
There were some potentially good moments to be had in the exchanges among the students in Lisa's classrooms, particularly between Lisa and a Middle Eastern woman. But Lisa's intemperate verbal attacks abort any rational discussion, to the detriment of the class as well as the audience of this movie. The event in Lisa's English literature class that had the teacher read the Poem, "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins was also a missed opportunity. The poem is particularly relevant to the story (after all the title of the movie is taken from the woman mentioned in it), but after the reading there is no discussion that could have illuminated the poem's meaning and its fitness to Lisa's situation. When Lisa was called on to respond to the reading, I sympathized with her blank stare. It is unreasonable to expect someone to grasp the meaning of that obscure poem on a quick first reading, at least it was for me. For example, what is to be made of the first two lines, "Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?" The poem is worthy of study, if you care to look it up.
The talents of Matthew Broderick and Matt Damon are pretty much wasted in their minor roles as teachers.
As the movie moves along too many subplots develop, like Lisa's seduction of Damon (highly unbelievable), her mother's boyfriend dying of a heart attack, and the relationship between Lisa and her father in California. There is one fatal plot flaw. The accident occurred on a busy New York City intersection and after the accident there were at least a couple dozen people who quickly gathered around. Are we to believe that not one of those people witnessed the accident?
The movie seems to be trying to say something about post 9/11 America. At the risk of reading more into it than what was intended I could see the bus as symbolizing the US that was paying attention to frivolous distractions while ignoring red lights (remember the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in the President's Daily Brief of Auguat, 2011) and driving into the Iraq war, killing many people and resulting in a protracted period of anguished coming to terms.
A more focused presentation could have made this a good movie.