White Bird in a Blizzard

Woodley is the teen angst poster girl de nos jours, but this performance is subtler and richer than any other she’s given to date.

White Bird In A Blizzard, is another literary adaptation, gunning for respectability. It’s the most mainstream and accessible picture he’s (Araki) ever made, but this time his pendulum swung a bit too far in that direction.

Evocative, gorgeous, occasionally maddening film.

Because the tone is so erratic, it’s hard to know whether its anticlimactic quality is a botch on Araki’s part, or a purposeful bit of genre subversion.

The film largely squanders Woodley's considerable talents by having her talking about (but never showing us) the numb but open wound that is Kat's relationship with her mother. More disappointingly, the film never figures out how to translate Kat's lack of emotion into something that makes us feel anything other than distant pity.

Having carried the mediocre smash “Divergent,” Shailene Woodley now uplifts another underwhelming teen thriller. This one’s as tiny as that one was huge.

“Scratch the surface and there’s only more surface,’’ a character all too accurately observes in this clunky, ugly and dull mash-up of a mystery.

Gregg Araki continues his exploration of the American nightmare that is suburbia and unfortunately, he once again can't maintain a balance of cohesion to truly make WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD soar. Similar in many ways to Araki's masterwork MYSTERIOUS SKIN, WHITE BIRD has two amazing central performances from Eva Green and Shailene Woodley that keep the film in the air but eventually one simply loses interest. Another missed opp from this very talented filmmaker who has now been producing and directing uneven but fascinating works for more than 20 years.

The film's intentionally awkward and disjointed style takes quite a while to settle into, as the clumsy dialogue and impenetrable story juxtapose with beautiful images and music. But once you get your head round everything, it is quite an enjoyable watch, the main attraction here being the impressive cast - particularly Shailene Woodley's sensitive character, Eva Green's wonderfully cartoonish performance and the breath of fresh air from the comical Gabourey Sidibe and Mark Indelicato. Overall, I would recommend the film; but if you miss it, I wouldn't fret too much.

White Bird in a Blizzard is that kind of film that is just so truly average, there are few words that can come up when you try to gather your thoughts about it. A middling thriller and a middling coming of age film, White Bird in a Blizzard seems content to evenly divide time between solving its mystery and having the protagonist sleep with every guy she meets and then brag about it later. On its own, either would be okay if expanded upon. Together during a hour and a half film, it feels tonally jumbled and all over the place. It was if they could not decide what kind of film they wanted to make and instead decided to make both. This is too bad because it wastes a good performance from Shailene Woodley and a truly captivating mystery and what would have been a worthy sexual coming of age film. While nothing overly original, White Bird in a Blizzard takes two workable genres and mashes them together and winds up hurting the overall product as a result.

Right about now, Shailene Woodley is no doubt wishing the studio (Magnolia Pictures) had lost this film in a blizzard. Ms. Woodley plays Kat Conners, a teenager on the brink of graduating high school when her mother, Eve (Eva Green) disappears. Kat doesn’t seem to have any idea what could have happened to her mother, and claims she doesn’t care, but keeps having snowy dreams about her. Kat’s friends and everyone else seem to think they know what happened. The movie is supposed to be a mystery thriller, but is totally devoid of any drama. Instead of getting caught up in a blizzard, we are left watching snow melt. The movie is mostly about the two years it takes to Kat to wake up and smell the coffee and then, in the last five minutes, everything is explained via narration. As a result, the movie is both dull and irritating. The pace is very slow and the dialogue is horribly lame, awkward, and stilted. The film allegedly takes place in the 1980’s, but director Gregg Araki doesn’t seem to have a clue about life in that decade. He introduces a mishmash of elements from decades both before and after the 1980’s. There’s lots of nudity involving the very good looking Ms. Woodley, but the scenes are so contrived one is left thinking that everyone but her knew this bird was dead on arrival and were trying to do something/anything to keep people in their seats.

Malgré son heure et demi syndicale, un film extrêmement poussif et très ennuyeux à tel point qu’on ne le termine pas, loin de là ! on éteint bien avant la moitié tellement ça se traîne à n’en plus pouvoir…. Eva Green en mère hystéro-maniaco-dépressive perd son temps ici et quant à Shaylène je sais plus quoi, elle joue comme un pied (comme d’habitude me dira-t-on) et bien qu’ils aient tenté de l’arranger un peu, elle a toujours une sale gueule. Non franchement, elle a une tronche de cageot et le charisme d’une andouillette douteuse… même si elle semble pas mal gaulée, franchement elle fout les glandes : il faut lui mettre un sac sur la tête ! elle a un regard de poisson mort. De toute façon, on s’emmerde dans ce psychodrame à deux dollars qui pédale sans la semoule lamentablement… on se croirait à vrai dire dans un double épisode des Feux de l’Amour ! oui, c’est si nul à chier que ça, c’est dingue !