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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. With superb supporting performances by Laurel Holliman as McTeer's newly found friend and Jay O. Sanders as a widower still not over the death of his wife.
--Mark Englehart
From The New Yorker
The camera is relaxed, moving with the characters, but still the great English actress Janet McTeer, in her first major film performance, bursts the frame with her vitality. This actress has more body, bigger eyes, a freer laugh-more soul, too-than we are used to seeing in movies. Her Mary Jo, a slightly frayed Southern working-class beauty, depends on her ability to attract men. Nothing else has ever really worked for her, but when she jumps into relationships, she's too honest to keep her mouth shut, and soon she has to jump out of them, dragging her little daughter (Kimberly Brown) along with her. Mary Jo is lovable but exasperating, and the mixed feelings she promotes make the movie continuously exciting. A small picture, but a fully felt one. Written by Angela Shelton and Gavin O'Connor, who also plays Mary Jo's irritable boyfriend and directs, with an easy hand. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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