Customer Reviews

Spinning into Butter

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

 

 

I had never heard of this story, nor did I know it was originally a play by Rebecca Gilman. I saw the DVD in the video store with Sarah Jessica Parker on the front cover.

The movie does keep a bit of a play atmosphere, and the topics are spot on. Prepare to be provoked and get buttons pushed. I thought it was a refreshingly blunt piece - better than "Crash" - in my opinion, and the story is engaging. None of that abstract hidden agenda stuff. It gets right to the point and drags the issue out into the open.

Basic plot: a hate crime is committed at a New England college which sends the school into media chaos and causes the Dean of Students (Sarah Jessica Parker) to have to deal with her own issues of race.

Sarah Jessica does a pretty decent job in this, and so does Mykelti Williamson. Their on screen chemistry is great.

Not only does the plot and motive make no sense, but many of the actors overemote as if they were still on a stage. The rest of it is just plain preachy and annoying.

Does the writer actually think that people think this way? I found this picture mind boggling.
Her reaction to her experience at the Chicago school is skitzo. The bottom line message of the film is: If someone appears to be a nice person but they are a different color than you, then they are probably a racist. Isn't this attitude Racism of the worst Kind????????

Spinning into Butter starring Sarah Jessica Parker is an interesting and unflinching look at racism on a College Campus. Parker holds this uneven film together, her character Sarah Daniels is so deeply flawed and naive about the world around her. Beau Bridges never really gets to shine and some the writing has a "soap opera" feel to it but overall, Spinning into Butter kept me entertained thanks to Parker's honest acting.

**1/2

In "Spinning Into Butter," a small ivy-covered college in Vermont, known for its liberal views and tolerant policies, is rocked by a racial incident aimed at a recently enrolled black student. Soon the incident has exposed a vein of racism running through the faculty and student body that has long lain hidden beneath a veneer of white liberal guilt and political correctness.

Sarah Jessica Parker plays Sarah Daniels, the newly arrived Dean of Students who has to take the lead in quelling the crisis, but who may have issues of her own regarding race to deal with. Veteran actor Beau Bridges also appears as a fellow dean.

Based on the play by Rebecca Gilman (who co-wrote the screenplay with Doug Atchinson), "Spinning Into Butter," directed by Mark Brokaw, starts off with the best of intentions, pinpointing some of the complexities inherent in an issue we too often sweep under the rug in an effort to avoid dealing with it. And the movie does an effective job highlighting the irony that sometimes it is the very well-intentioned efforts we make to try to alleviate the negative effects of racism - quotas, forced integration, segregation in the name of "cultural pride" etc. - that wind up actually exacerbating the problem in the end. The film also makes the rather provocative case that even in a mostly white, socially liberal enclave like Vermont, racism still exists, though since it is rooted more in the subconscious, it is more likely to manifest itself in covert rather than overt ways there. It's a daring and risky theme and one the filmmakers should be congratulated for at least having the courage to bring out in the open.

However, noble intentions notwithstanding, the heavy-handed approach the movie takes towards the topic ultimately robs it of much of its effectiveness. Too often the characters sound less like real people than like spokespersons for individual causes. Moreover, the staging of events is frequently awkward, the drama needlessly contrived. And the resolution of the conflict, quite frankly, borders on the preposterous. Additionally, the performances, with the exception of Parker`s, lack any mitigating trace of polish and finesse.

There's no denying that there are moments of quality scattered throughout the film, and that the autumnal New England scenery is absolutely lovely (though a very small part of the exteriors were filmed - seamlessly, I might add - at the high school in Los Angeles where I work). Yet, sad to say, "Spinning Into Butter" emerges as probably the clunkiest and most self-satisfied examination of race relations in America since the urban drama "Crash."

sorry to say, i expected my foot to be part of this movie, that's why i ordered it. but it does make brooklyn college look really nice.