So authentic is Janet McTeer's performance as a feisty Southern mother and faded party girl in Tumbleweeds that if you didn't know better, you'd say this wasn't the same Janet McTeer, British stage actress, who won a Tony as Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House on Broadway. McTeer's turn as modern-day Southern belle Mary Jo seems so genuine that you'd think this actress had grown up in the shade of magnolia trees sipping mint juleps. However, it's not just McTeer's flawless acting that makes Tumbleweeds so memorable. First-time director Gavin O'Connor, who cowrote the screenplay with Angela Shelton, has crafted a refreshing and unsentimental tale of a mother (McTeer) and daughter (Kimberly J. Brown) who wander the country like the titular rolling plants; whenever one of her badly chosen boyfriends threatens her or her daughter, Mary Jo packs up the car and heads for a new state. When daughter Ava persuades her to head for southern California, Mary Jo takes up with a genial if temperamental truck driver (director O'Connor) and starts the pattern all over again. However, as Ava approaches adolescence, she becomes less and less tolerant of her mother's behavior, and starts to find her own voice. Tumbleweeds is what would have been called a "little" film, long on character development and short on plot, but in a day and age when deeply etched characters are getting harder to come by, it qualifies as a definite landmark, especially in comparison with the similarly plotted but more sentimental Anywhere But Here. You won't find any crying jags, schmaltzy breakups, contrived meet-cutes, or patently fake movie moments in this film--instead, there's a mother-daughter relationship that remains complex, joyous, and heartfelt throughout. Brown matches McTeer scene for scene, and her Ava qualifies as one of filmdom's most realistic teens. These two women, along with O'Connor, create a quiet, perfectly rendered gem of a film.
