It's as if American Woman can't quite make up it's mind whether it's a series of domestic incidents or a thriller. The one good thing about it is Sienna Miller's powerhouse performance of a woman whose life has gone awry due to her poor choices of men. The weaknesses in the film are it's overlong running time of two hours, the lacklustre male actors and flagging script. It starts well with the scene being set up for a mother losing her teenage daughter to the night, a major police search for her in dense countryside and the tense performance of Miller as the mother. Unfortunately the film doesn't maintain this tension and quickly descends into a domestic drama about the mother having to raise her grandson and the many bad choices of men she encounters. If this were a film in four acts, the third act, where she marries one of her bad choice of men, could have been cut and the film would have gained for being much tighter. The film would have lost nothing by cutting that half hour out as the actor had no chemistry with Sienna and we are supposed to believe she wanted to marry him after eight weeks of meeting. I'm convinced that a better script and director could eventually get Miller the recognition I think she deserves as an actress. Sadly this film isn't it although she's riveting for the most part. Christina Hendricks and Amy Madigan as her sister and mother help with the acting firepower where the men are lacking. Seven stars for Sienna.
Review of American Woman
