To be clear, Jack and Diane has nothing whatsoever to do with John Cougar Mellencamp's 1982 song of the same name. That song was a brilliant piece of Americana about two kids, a boy and a girl, growing up in Middle America. This movie is a disorganized piece of indie "realism" about two girls in New York who approach falling in love with one another. The problem is that the movie doesn't have enough confidence in its characters to develop them in a way that makes us care.
The major focus of the film is Diane (Juno Temple), a wide eyed Brit with a mop of blonde hair who chooses baby doll dresses to be her ever-present wardrobe. She's a cute girl who misbehaves, drinks to the point of vomiting and has frequent nosebleeds. The other girl is Jack (Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis) a skate-boarding butch lesbian, a loner who finds something to like about this dysfunctional Diane.
The girls meet in a store one day and have a few shy, awkward exchanges before Diane has another nosebleed. The nosebleeds are never explained nor followed up and neither is a scene in which Jack is hit by a car immediately following their initial meeting. There are a lot of things in this movie that happen that are never really explained. The frustration of this movie is that the love affair happens in episodes, not in continuity.
There is something in these two girl that, in a better movie, might have made for a pure down-to-earth love story. The problem is that the screenplay won't have it. It keeps intercutting their budding relationship with a lot of episodic nonsense, like a silly scene in which Diane escapes into the bathroom to shave her pubic area, or the reoccurring microscopic images of something monstrous growing inside of Diane that are perhaps supposed to be manifestations of her twisted feelings about Jack. We see internal organs with hair slithering tightly around them, but we are left to assume what that might be. We are led to believe that it is the manifestation of this new lifestyle but you're never really sure. The scenes are disgusting and fall on the story like a ton of bricks.
Those scenes seem to indicate that the filmmakers didn't know how to create characters with genuine emotions. The screen presence of the two girls but what they have to talk about is dull and uninteresting when it isn't being intruded upon by another dramatic element. The movie moves away from their relationship as an effort to keep from having to really deal with them. This is a very confused movie that leaves you scratching you're head when it's over.
The major focus of the film is Diane (Juno Temple), a wide eyed Brit with a mop of blonde hair who chooses baby doll dresses to be her ever-present wardrobe. She's a cute girl who misbehaves, drinks to the point of vomiting and has frequent nosebleeds. The other girl is Jack (Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis) a skate-boarding butch lesbian, a loner who finds something to like about this dysfunctional Diane.
The girls meet in a store one day and have a few shy, awkward exchanges before Diane has another nosebleed. The nosebleeds are never explained nor followed up and neither is a scene in which Jack is hit by a car immediately following their initial meeting. There are a lot of things in this movie that happen that are never really explained. The frustration of this movie is that the love affair happens in episodes, not in continuity.
There is something in these two girl that, in a better movie, might have made for a pure down-to-earth love story. The problem is that the screenplay won't have it. It keeps intercutting their budding relationship with a lot of episodic nonsense, like a silly scene in which Diane escapes into the bathroom to shave her pubic area, or the reoccurring microscopic images of something monstrous growing inside of Diane that are perhaps supposed to be manifestations of her twisted feelings about Jack. We see internal organs with hair slithering tightly around them, but we are left to assume what that might be. We are led to believe that it is the manifestation of this new lifestyle but you're never really sure. The scenes are disgusting and fall on the story like a ton of bricks.
Those scenes seem to indicate that the filmmakers didn't know how to create characters with genuine emotions. The screen presence of the two girls but what they have to talk about is dull and uninteresting when it isn't being intruded upon by another dramatic element. The movie moves away from their relationship as an effort to keep from having to really deal with them. This is a very confused movie that leaves you scratching you're head when it's over.