By: debbie lynn elias
Oscar winning screenwriter for MILK, Dustin Lance Black now jumps into the director’s chair with VIRGINIA. Debuting at TIFF two years ago, initial reviews were less than positive and in a surprising move, Black took heed of the critics’ comments and went back into the editing bay, making substantive changes to bring us the film we see today. With homespun quaintness and charm, VIRGINIA has a narrative and tonal clarity that is effectively engaging, and boasts one of the best performances to come from Jennifer Connelly in many a year.
Virginia is not your typical mother. A single mom, and schizophrenic, she lives with her son Emmett in a one-horse little beach town. Emmett’s father, whoever he is, has long been out of the picture. Although fiercely protective of and fiercely dependent upon Emmett, Virginia dreams of escape to live with her sister in San Francisco. But dreams cost money and for now, being on the low end of the economic totem pole, all she can do is escape as far as her affair with the town’s very married and very (hypocritically) Mormon sheriff, Dick Tipton, will take her; and that means only a few hours of sexual exploits whenever Tipton is feeling randy. But what happens when Tipton’s political aspirations get the best of him and he starts to campaign for the state senate? Extramarital affairs don’t bode well with devoutly religious voters, so Virginia gets unceremoniously dumped, something which doesn’t sit well with her already fractured mental state.
And then there’s Emmett. Although feeling a responsibility to his mother and her care, 17 year old Emmett has his own life to think about, and it centers around Sheriff Tipton’s daughter Jessie. With young love in the air, Emmett and Jessie plan for their own future at the expense of their parents’ wants and beliefs. Working at the boardwalk carnival for the summer, Emmett dreams of making enough money so that he and Jessie, with Virginia in tow, can head west to a brighter future.
With secrets abounding amongst all the townspeople, and as Virginia tries to pull off an extortion scheme against Tipton, as well as a few other things, the small town scenario goes from bad to worse with potentially disastrous repercussions for all concerned.
This is without a doubt, Jennifer Connelly’s best performance in years. Described by Black as “wonderful” and “really funny”, Connelly walks the fine line between comedy and drama to excellent result. Key is that between her performance and Black’s script, Virginia never becomes a caricature of a woman torn apart physically and mentally. Connelly gives her a fragility that is at times quite touching.
Harris Gilbertson should be on everyone’s “Someone to Watch” list. Giving Emmett a gently laced cautious naivete, he captures your heart the same way Jessie captures Emmett’s. And together with Emma Roberts’ Jessie, the two are charming, resonating young love and the unspoken dreams it holds for each. Beautiful performances by both.
Then there’s Ed Harris. He soars as Sheriff Tipton. Rough and gruff on one hand, secretive and deceitful on the other, and a few moments of tender selfishness thrown in between, he celebrates Tipton’s flaws while eschewing cliche. Nicely paired with Harris is real-life wife Amy Madigan who gives a tacitly heartbreaking performance as Tipton’s dower and dowdy, aged wife.
We already known that Dustin Lance Black can write. We’ve seen him do it. He has an Oscar to prove it. The big question is, can he direct? The answer – yes, he can. Excelling at character construction, Black also has a good visually metaphoric eye, utilizing color, lighting and framing to their best advantages as visual storytelling tools. In developing the character of VIRGINIA, Black (a consummate researcher) and Connelly met with psychologists to learn about the specifics of schizophrenia. “One of the things they cannot control is sound. It can drive them insane. What they can control is color and light. So, how would someone of Virginia’s means be able to do that?” The answer came from what Black thought from a far was a stained glass window in a rundown little house. “It was really just a Jack Daniels bottle with some water with blue food coloring, a Gatorade bottle with some green… A collection of probably a half-dozen of them. It was really lovely…Virginia might just take that and use it in a bigger way just to always be able to control the color and environment in her house.” The result is stunning.
Capturing the ambient essence of the South proved a bit more difficult. “It was challenging, but thanks to a great camera department we were able to achieve a southern summery look in the middle of the coldest fall in west Michigan history.” Shooting in Michigan for budgetary concerns, camera angles are played to their advantage to hide the natural richness of fall foliage.
Described by Black as a “low budget, homespun production, we went back and embraced it for what it was in the editing room the second time around and tried to focus in on the performances.” This new edit refocuses the narrative, honing it in, simplifying it and definitely showcases some compelling individual performances.
Calling on his own upbringing for what he calls “that Southern aspirational thing that you don’t see in films that often” Black embraces the flaws of the human condition, dismissing them as shortcomings and portraying them as liberating strengths. Giving VIRGINIA a very intimate personal sensibility, Dustin Lance Black shows us that it is truly is the simple things in life that are often the most wonderful…just like VIRGINIA.
Virginia – Jennifer Connelly
Sheriff Tipton – Ed Harris
Emmett – Harris Gilbertson
Jessie Tipton – Emma Roberts
Written and Directed by Dustin Lance Black.
