Customer Reviews

Dandelion

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A young teenaged boy has a gun in his hand, tears in his eyes, and pulls the trigger. This is the alarming image we encounter at the beginning of DANDELION. It captures our attention and keeps it throughout the entire film. We want to know what happens, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

DANDELION is the story of Mason Mullich, a young man living a lackluster life in the wheat belt. We get a sense his life is going nowhere. His only friend Eddie is the younger brother of a drug addict who tortures the two. His mother Layla is an alcoholic and his father Luke is a Willie Lowman-esque type who believes he's bigger than his small life. Things begin to change for the better for Mason when a young woman named Danny moves to the town but positive changes get quickly thwarted when Mason finds himself being charged for a crime he did not commit. Things once again improve for Mason who begins to know love through his relationship with Danny, but the film ends with an unexpected tragedy.

In the hands of some actors, DANDELION could be either deadly or cliché. A strong cast keeps this from happening. Vincent Kartheiser gives a compelling performance as Mason. He is at times edgy and at other times innocent. We believe he experiences first love and feel for him in his loss. We wonder how someone who is constantly used and betrayed can still be so loving and forgiving, but Kartheiser makes it all believable. Mare Winningham as Layla, Mason's troubled mother is believable. In some ways she seems to be perfect when she's cast as a mistreated woman. Arliss Howard is well cast as Luke, Mason's father. We wonder how he can live with himself, yet he does and while we can revile him at times, we do feel some sympathy. Taryn Manning is well cast as Danny. Her character may not be the best developed in the film (the women can be caricatures at times), she does have a certain sweetness which makes us feel for her and understand why Mason is drawn to her. This is the first film for director Mark Milgard and it's an excellent effort. There are some symbols used in the film that are not fleshed out to their fullest potential, and there are a few loose ends that can leave more questions than answers, but overall it's a great story and good effort.

Love stories about teenagers (although the people in this movie are more like...18, which still makes them a teenager but whatever) are usually pretty bad. In fact, almost all of them are. Rarely does a movie come around that really captures any of the emotion or raw angst of young love. Don't get me wrong, there are some...But few. This movie does that in it's own weird way. It's disturbing, haunting, beautiful, poignant, and true. And that's freaking talent, OK? Vincent Kartheiser ('Another Day in Paradise') plays Mason, a silent teenager who keeps to himself and watches his parents fight constantly and watch his uncle sink into an abyss probably caused by Vietnam. One day Mason meets Danny (Taryn Manning, 'Hustle & Flow') and it affects him. But then an accident takes Mason away for a couple years; when he returns, nothing is really different and Danny is still in town. She reveals to him that she's thought about him, the feeling's mutual and two begin to date. Add more some more tragedy and a wonderful semi-ending, you have "Dandelion." Since this won't give away anything, in the very beginning of the movie we're treated to an opening scene with Mason walking through a field before putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. This scene works and yet it doesn't. It prepares you for the worst, but then in the next 15 minutes the scene is repeated twice giving us the feeling that Mason may be imagining it. It does work as a way of telling you "This is not a happy-feel good movie." But at the same time, it drops a few hints. Mason's killing himself? Something bad must happen...Could it be? Hmm. A lot of people may figure out the end, but that really doesn't matter. The last young love story I saw that was this good was "All the Real Girls" (although that film was far superior), even though both films are completely different while tackling almost the same subject matter. Although, for the record, there are no (even possibly imagined) suicides in "All the Real Girls." Anyway, that film definitely captured conversations, fascinations, and quirks about young love; and this film is definitely...Well, a movie. They both tackle the subject in an intelligent, poignant way. Some of the dialogue between Mason and Danny is a little too movieish, and Danny's character needed more screen time. But, and I know I'm repeating myself, this a beautiful film that deserves an audience.

GRADE: A

I'm the type of person that watches movies only to look at certain actresses or actors. Taryn Manning to me is one of the most beautiful people on the planet. Raw attitude, raw acting, raw emotions, raw songbird... The girl is dynamite; I bought this movie cause it wasn't one of her scary flicks. I'm a pretty open minded individual really, so I watched the movie with an open mind. Never did I think, once again, a movie with a limited sound track would catch me so. I'm just used to finding some relativity behind music and a feature. But once the sond finally hit me upon the final sunset scene; this movie made the connection from the beginning to the end. Dandelion is a clear picture into a teenage heart break. Everyone delivers, but Taryn Manning brings it to life for me. Cloud nine from the first moment I bought it to the ending credits; this movie is worth the wait, the length and the attention. Mark Milgard knows what he is doing... Tracy Kaplan the casting director, knows what she's doing...

This is very depressing stuff about a kid with no luck, who keeps getting caught up in situations where he's innocent, but presumed guilty. Something about being willing to do anything for someone you love. Much of the action seems to take place in windy fields of swaying wheat or grass of some type. The pacing is very slow, but it's almost hypnotic. Worth watching. Good soundtrack.

I was fortunate to see this film at the 2003 San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It was remarked that this film slipped through the cracks of Hollywood, but would never make it to video because it was too good. For those reading this review, consider yourself fortunate. This film is beautifully profound. The reviewer who wrote that it is a knock-off of a tired genre is absolutely wrong.

Cinematically this film is a stunner. The script is unpredictable, therefore interesting. The conflict between father and son, finally resolved, is nicely tense. So is the conflict between his parents. Mason is a compelling character; after his return from detention he seems to have a Buddha-like mind. This serenity contrasts starkly with the other characters.

Not trite at all. Watch this one.

I purchased this film because it won the Audience Appreciation Award at the 2004 RiverRun International Film Festival. I had attended the festival but missed out on this film. However, after viewing the film, I found nothing positive about it other than it finally ended. Typical film designed to appeal to teens, i.e., it had the typical showcase of teen drug abuse, teen sex and teen suicide, in a very predictable order. I am glad the RiverRun Festival, which was relatively new in 2004, has progressed to the point this film would likely not be accepted today. After suffering through one viewing of the film, we trashed it, rather than allow it to take up space in our collection.

Movie early on is study of relationships withen a somewhat dysfunctional family. The young love through a sense of forboding seems headed for some not revealed tragedy. In the end total disaster is avoided,but a sense of love lost remains. The movie does have a great feeling of tenderness and missed opportunities.

Barker D. Chunn,Jr.

Fans of Vincent Karthieser will enjoy this movie and his portrayal of a sensitive young man dealing with a dysfunctional family in rural Idaho. But the movie doesn't rise to the dramatic quality of Kartheiser's other movies, "Crime and Punishment in Suburbia" or "The Unsaid", or his recent appearance in the TV series, "Angel".

This is probably the worst script Vincent's had to deal with since the terrible "Heaven Sent". Many of Vincent's roles border on the melodramatic, but this script goes over the top. Also, Kartheiser's co-star, Tara Manning is another mis-match for Kartheiser. The problem is not Manning, but the script. Manning is believable as the stereotypical poor white "trailer park" girl she is asked to play, it's unbelievable that a girl like that would find anything in common with the sensitive, quiet dreamer that Kartheiser plays.

Another problem is that roles like this are getting a bit repititious for Kartheiser, and this lousy script doesn't offer Kartheiser anything new to work with. I've been bewitched by Vincent Kartheiser's on-screen personae for a long time. Vincent's movies and TV roles have this re-occurring theme of sensitive loner (most suburban teenaged) boy struggling with teenage alienation and angst. Crime and Punishment in Suburbia, The Unsaid, TV series Angels...all the same thing. This script just seems to reinforce the stereotype, and poor Kartheiser can't rise above script and his performance comes off as a rip-off of earlier roles.

Another problem is that Kartheiser is getting a little "long in the tooth" to play roles like this. As Kartheiser gets older, he's losing the androgenous beauty that has fascinated viewers in the past, and we see the tell-tale facial hair that we've not seen before in his other movies. While Kartheiser still got the ability to move us with the sincerity and honesty of his portrayals of the alienated, tortured suburban teenage boy, at some point, he's got to move on to more adult roles.

Despite the defects, I felt it was still worth it to spend another 90 odd minutes with Vincent, and I think you'll feel the same!

The case of this DVD boasts five festival awards and the promise of "redemption" for its characters, but I was left wondering why on both counts. There are at least nine suicide scenes in this film, mainly imagined, but one of which is very real. Teenager Mason grows up in a horribly dysfunctional family where dinners are characterized by a raging father (Luke), a people-pleasing, pill-popping, and alcoholic mother (Leila), and a crazy uncle (Bobby) who thinks that World War II is raging and who dies in an asylum. A tragic accident strikes that feeds on their dysfunction. Enter a young girl (Danny) whose mom is a passive-aggressive, drifter single parent. Danny enjoys drugs, alcohol, and admits that she has "a thing for things that aren't good for me." But put Danny and Mason in a lush meadow with a brilliant blue sky, undulating grass, and an idyllic pond, and what do you get? Redemption? No. On an improbable fishing trip with his son Mason, father Luke described every character in this film: "You wake up one day and nothin's the way it's supposed to be. So you try to keep goin', takin' down the people you love the most right with ya. And for some reason you can't admit that until you've already lost them."

It really should should be renamed "Tales from Emo-land". As I was watching I just kept imagining how much an emo high school kid would love this movie... it's packed with depressed people living marginal lives and taking drastic measures to solve common life problems. That being said, I still liked the movie; it just had this air about it that felt like they were trying to bring you down. I'm all for depressing movies, the issue I had with this was more so that it seemed a little forced... these people weren't depressed for reasons I could relate to in any way; their conditions seemed largely self imposed.

This is the type of film you need to watch when you're in the right mood, and I'll fully admit that it's a possibility if I'd have watched this another time (maybe when I was a tad more on the reflective side) I might have liked it quite a bit more. It is beautifully shot and has some great music that matches the film perfectly. This one gets a 3/5, and I still recommend it if you're in the mood for something that is the opposite of 'feel good'.