Tumbleweeds

Pros: Life can be hard for poor folks of any color.
Cons: You want to jerk a knot in the momma.

Before you get our nose out of joint and start thinking this is a farfetched, southern, trailer-trash fantasy, remember that the entire movie is semi-autobiographical. Angela Shelton drew on her own childhood in writing and putting together this...

Pros: A sensitive script and direction by O'Connor and razzle-dazzle performances by McTeer and Brown make this unforgettable
Cons: The standard on-the-road plot drives down familiar highways

Mary Jo Walker—the central character in Tumbleweeds, one of 1999’s best independent films—is the latest in a long line of movie divorcees, the scrappy, wild-spirited women who somehow survive abusive marriages and then must learn how to find love...

Pros: Good character acting by Janet McTear and Kimberly Brown
Cons: Plot was a bit weak

McTear Shines, but Plot Is Pedestrian

When I first started to watch this video, I thought it would be an excellent drama, along the lines of "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." True, Mary Jo Walker (played by Janet McTear) was a...

Pros: acting, well written, pacing (especially the necessary exposition)
Cons: can be predictable

Tumbleweeds is a somewhat predictable gem focusing on an unusual mother-daughter relationship. I say somewhat predictable because there’ll be key moments that you think you know exactly what will be said or done, and then find yourself pleasantly...

Pros: Great Janet McTeer performance, a nice story about an unusual mother-daughter relationship.
Cons: McTeer's character is often an unsympathetic one, and her boyfriends are jerks!

There had been many films about Southern belles, and just as many films about single parents, but now here's a film which combines the two. Tumbleweeds is a film from a few years ago which deals with a Southern gal who has had a lifelong trouble with...

Pros: Teaches about how a parent child relationship should be.
Cons: none

My mother dragged me out to the movies because she was dying to see one. We actually had a choice between this movie and Music of the Heart. We actually chose this one because of time constraints. But, I'm glad we did.

This movie is about a...

Pros: Great acting, plot, characters, chemistry is really believable
Cons: Camera work looks a little unprofessional, Kimberly's sharp accent gets annoying

Smiling is one thing I enjoy most when I watch a movie and this one has me ear to ear practically all the way through. Janet McTeer and newcomer Kimberly J. Brown work so well together that you'd actually believe they were mother and daughter. Making...

Pros: Star-In-Waiting McTeer
Cons: Continuity problems and low budget

Bad films can be saved by good performances. It's a far greater pleasure, however, when an merely-okay film is propelled into being a nearly-great one by the energy of its actors. Such is the case with TUMBLEWEEDS, a modest diversion which thrives off of...

Pros: the acting is lovely
Cons: a tad predictable

So I'm at my video store Saturday night, looking for a movie to rent. Boys Don't Cry? Saw it, loved it, but can't see it again. American Pie, the Uncut version? Um, no, no, and no. But I see a video box that says Tumbleweeds. I remember now-Janet McAteer...

Pros: Pretends to be a standard road movie, but then turns into something much more inspired
Cons: First 30 minutes is, in fact a road movie. It takes a little while to get into the actual heart of the film

I was looking at the poster for "Tumbleweeds" and tried to recall what it was about the movie that represented the mother and daughter cheerfully smiling in their bathing suits. Oh, there is a scene with mother and daughter, hand in hand...

Pros: A well acted and structured low-key affair which is likely to move you to an extent
Cons: A slightly worrying relationship between mother and daughter is treated in too blase a fashion for my liking. It also verges on the formulaic occasionally.

The plot: Eva is a young girl. Her Mother (Mary Jo) flies from failed abusive relationship to failed abusive relationship, getting by on her essential decency and ability to get on with people. Every time Mary Jo splits up with a partner they pick up...

Pros: This will be very near the top of my top five at year's end
Cons: none

Yes friends, those two words "chick" and "flick" that guy movie critics are so conditioned now to not use will get a thorough and proper dusting off. My title begs the questions "What is a chick flick?" and "How is...

Pros: Good portrayal of characters; story moves along
Cons: Shaky camera work

"Tumbleweeds" is a mother-daughter relationship film about a mother, Mary Jo Walker (Janet McTeer) who drags her daughter, Ava (Kimberly Brown), around the country as she jumps from one loser boyfriend after another. Mary Jo seems to be...

Pros: Great chemistry between Janet McTeer & Kimberly Brown
Cons: Low budget sound quality hurts some scenes

"Tumbleweeds" rolled into the $2.75 discount theater recently and I'm rather glad I caught it before the Academy Awards extravaganza next month. It's not a very polished film: the editing/continuity is a tad loose; hand-held camera shots seem...

Pros: Performances
Cons: Untimely Approach

Coming off of Wayne Wang's Anywhere But Here, Tumbleweeds certainly has a been-there-done-that feel. Not that the film is horrible, but that I did not feel that any of it was new. I'm sure that both films were written at the same time, and that their...