Much like young heroine Kat Connor, who, amidst a kerfuffle of dizzying major life-altering events, struggles to make sense of the whizzing elements around her, you might find yourself less than impressed with the overly-stuffed and acted, White Bird in a Blizzard.
Adapted from the Young-adult novel of the same name, YA book-to-screen favorite Shailene Woodley is tasked here with trying to keep this sagging Coming of age thriller afloat as Kat (who provides casual and unconvincing voice-over narration throughout), a high-school aged girl who is met with two very different life-changing circumstances, and at the same time: that of realizing her new body and self as a young woman (and with that, embarking on a wildly-charged sexual maturity), along with the disappearance of her unhappy, if not outright paranoid, once-beauty-turned-homemaker mother, Eve (Eva Green).
Now, as is fully recognized- books, by their nature of giving audiences total creative freedom by making us picture the entire story in our heads, will always have the advantage of having perfectly played subtlety and nuance with all things. With this acknowledgment, it’s less than fair to compare a movie to its book form. However, when a movie tries to earn the same elaborate and emotional victories without providing the carefully selected words and prose that the author (in this case, Laura Kasischke) would use, a movie can quickly feel flat and imitative, which does not escape this film’s doings.
Blizzard operates in a highly staged, highly dressed up world, which is furthered by its time era. Set in the noticeably costumed world of 1980s and New Wave rock, and before familial drama knew the politics of New Age parenting, we see that Kat lives the life of a single child, a high school rocker who just grew into her most attractive qualities, and not to the non-noticing of her desperately kooky mother, a former beautiful young thing herself. Here, Eva Green gives a meaty piece of manic performance, which spurs the film with some intrigue, but feels a bit too played up nonetheless. It’s when Eve and her controlling nature suddenly vanish one day that sets in place the story of a young girl who must brave her own life, and through the lens of her disappeared mother.
While these dreamy elements might make for rich abstract world-making for any novel, the insurmountable task of bringing those elements to life in a harmonious way is the true challenge, which is noticeable here in this R-rated thriller.
In its earliest opening sequences, it’s immediately clear that there is a visual interest to the flick that director Gregg Akai (Kaboom) dials into here, bringing a dreamy-realism that drives this created world and its’ mysteries and intrigues ever forward, for a story that might have otherwise easily felt trite and boring. While these dreamy elements might make for rich abstract world-making for any novel, the insurmountable task of bringing those elements to life in a harmonious way is the true challenge, which is noticeable here in this R-rated thriller. The film threads a handful of reoccurring fantasy sequences, showing Kat edging ever closer to a nude lifeless figure in the snow (don’t worry, it’s a fantasy sequence), the rest of the movie tries to make Kat and her young life just as interesting- but neither Woodley herself or the story around her provide anything to grasp onto except for moderate entertainment.
One of the more interesting parts of the film- and for reasons other than you might expect- is Woodley’s decision to bare all on screen. A handful of these nude scenes show Kat embarking on her sexual life with dumb hunk Phil (Shiloh Fernandez) and Detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane), but these scenes feel so detached from the character and the larger story at play (seriously Kat, you have no reservations about your missing mother?) that the emotional impact from such scenes is hard to feel.
It’s not that the film doesn’t generate interesting, stirring, and worthwhile watching. Each component is rich, and the end film certainly won’t leave you thinking you didn’t get a full meal (with a twist that lifts the film ever slightly). Christopher Meloni as Kat’s loser dad and disappointing husband Brock is a devilish joy to watch, even while his character is so obviously cut from the cloth of creepy weird hermits who may or may not have a secret to keep. But with too many dovetailing elements, including an unnecessarily long third act that sees Kat go off to college, and stays with her until she comes home to learn the truth of Eve’s vanishing, White Bird in a Blizzard‘s attempt to fulfill both artistic and commercial expectations falls short.
In theaters this Friday.
