The Burning Plain: a movie review
September 19, 2009
Burning Plain gets a powerful start with an image of a burning trailer in the middle of the New Mexico desert and then jumps to a rainy Portland room with a nude Charleze Theron. You get right away that this film is going to be straightforward and bare. And it definitely has the signature stamp of the director Guillermo Ariaga who wrote the screenplays for Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros. It's a powerful story essentially following three women, or rather three characters, in their intertwined and climactic lives. Narration jumps back and forth but you soon start seeing how the pieces fit together despite the gaps in time and geography. Charleze Theron (as Sylvia) does the on-pitch acting you expect of her, capturing every detail of her character's struggling soul. Kim Basinger is brilliant as Gina, the cancer survivor, mother of 4 and a cheating wife. Her turn is worthy of an award. Finally, Jennifer Lawrence (as Mariana, Gina's daughter) is a promising newcomer with a great sense of timing. And, while I have some problems with the story - I wish there were more connecting bits - these three women not only make it work but make it memorable, or rather haunting.
Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) is the youngest character we are to follow. She is wise beyond her years and sort of has to take the mom role and care for her brothers, as her real mom Gina (Kim Basinger) gets on with an affair and is not really there for her family. Mariana follows her mom to the trailer where the two love birds get together and learns about the affair. She is mad, as any teen would be, and sets it on fire to teach them a lesson. She is shocked to see the results of her actions which would haunt her her entire life. This accident, however, brings her to Santiago, the son of Nick Martinez (the man Gina was seeing). Mariana and Santiago get romantically involved, despite their respective family's disapproval, and end up having a baby. They move to Mexico to flee the families, but soon Mariana is fleeing Santiago and leaving her child behind.
You can say it's the story of the family trauma caused by infidelity. But it's so much more. It's the story of a cancer survivor who is learning how to cope with her life, her marriage and her sexuality. Nick truly understood Gina and found her beautiful despite her cancer scars, unlike her husband who is a traveling truck driver and is no longer interested in her as a woman. I wish there was a little bit of a back story to Gina. You get her pain - Basinger makes it visible in her forgetfulness, her newfound joy, her feelings of guilt. You just don't get the full story. The movie is so well edited (unlike so many today), but here's a part that could probably be expanded on. I understand why the director is not focusing as much on Gina. He wants to make it more about Mariana and Sylvia.
Sylvia (Charleze Theron) is like a kitten with a metal shield. She is pretty and soft on the outside but beware - there is a guard and it's always on. Theron shows her character's struggles in her erratic sexual behavior - she does not value herself highly, probably because of her past actions and guilt. She shows her daily pain and avoidance of reality. That is until one day reality knocks on her door and she has to deal with the past. I don't want to give up the whole story, otherwise it will not be as interesting to watch. But I will tell you that there should be more movies with Charleze Theron. She is Hollywood gold - a beautiful actress who can actually act, and best of all, you forget she is acting.
There is an interesting juxtaposition in this film of the burning trailer in the hot New Mexico desert where Mariana's character starts and the rain and cool of Portland where she finds herself years later. She is running to the opposite side of the country but she ends up coming back, because that's where she finds redemption she's been looking for all along.