Synopsis
A sheriff sees his state senate bid slide out onto the ice when his daughter begins to date the son of a charming but psychologically disturbed woman with whom the sheriff has engaged in a two-decade-long affair.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Jennifer ConnellyVirginia
- Emma RobertsJessie Tipton
- Toby JonesMax
- Ed HarrisSheriff Dick Tipton
- Carrie PrestonBetty
- Lucas GrabeelNervous Mormon
- Yeardley SmithMrs. Whitaker
- Amy MadiganMrs. Tipton
- Anne LockhartPolice Dispatch Operator (voice)
- Alex FrostJosh
Recommandations
- 50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
It's all rather wacky and hard to follow or fathom, although maybe that's attributable to Virginia's schizophrenia veering off on its delusional phase. - 50
New York Post
Black loses control of Virginia as it lurches from political satire to unintended black comedy to mom-and-son melodrama. But the performances and the movie's sheer crazy audacity make it watchable. - 40
Variety
A scattershot Southern melodrama that can't decide what it's supposed to be. - 40
Time Out
It also serves to undercut fine performances by Connelly and Harris, whose choices are constantly destabilized by scripted swings between comedy and drama, realism and fantasy, genuine catharsis and indie-film ornamentation. Black's overactive melodrama is more than a representation of schizophrenia; it's the embodiment of it. - 40
New York Daily News
The movie as a whole falls victim to a dewy kind of Tennessee Williams-itis, as Black plops too many wanna-be, colorful twists - imminent illness, botched robberies, fake pregnancies - into what is at heart a gently heartbreaking rendering. - 38
Slant Magazine
Unfortunately, there's little sympathy granted to these people, and the revelation of their hidden vices comes across like an increasingly mean series of punchlines. - 30
The Hollywood Reporter
Presumably a glib attack on sanctimonious small-town religious hypocrisy informed by Black's own strict Mormon upbringing, the film is tonally all over the place, eventually settling in a rut that comes a lot closer to resembling bad camp than edgy satire. - 30
Village Voice
A bonkers tragicomedy that blandly mocks the red-state family-values charade.
