WILD FLOWER
US, 1991, 90 minutes, Colour.
Patricia Arquette, Reese Witherspoon, Beau Bridges, Susan Blakely, William Mc Namara.
Directed by Diane Keaton.
Wild Flower is an impressive drama set in Georgia in the 1930s. It focuses on a family, Beau Bridges the patriarch, a widower, self-pitying and alcoholic, trying to bring up two teenage children played by William Mc Namara and an extraordinarily vivacious Reece Witherspoon (interesting to see in retrospect after her successful adult performances). Patricia Arquette portrays a young girl, epileptic and partially deaf. Her brutal stepfather keeps her locked in a barn. When she is discovered by Witherspoon and Mc Namara, they form a friendship and enable her to be transformed. The film is very strong on relationships, on re-creating a scene where the poor workers on farms have no opportunities, but are able to find a better life through the help of sympathetic characters.
Diane Keaton had made a documentary called Heaven and this was her first feature film, directed with a sensitivity to all the roles, but especially the women (including Susan Blakely as Arquette's oppressed mother).
1. A film of the 30s? The re-creation of Georgia, the poor town, the farmers, the Depression, poverty, squalor, lack of opportunity?
2. The title, the focus on actual flowers? Alice as a wild flower, given the opportunity to bloom?
3. The sensitivity to human relationships, to the women in the cast, to understanding women's issues? The work of Diane Keaton?
4. The Perkins family: the mother dead, the grandmother caring for them? Jack, his grief, drinking, sternness with his children? Forbidding them to go near the Guthries? Ellie and Sam, their ages, going to school, life at home? Their relationship with their father, with their grandmother? The memories of the dead mother, especially the necklace that Ellie wanted?
5. The Guthries, hostile, the notices to keep out, the stepfather and his cruelty to Alice, keeping her in the shed, brutalising her? Her oppressed mother, not knowing any better, care for her daughter, for her husband, her fears?
6. Ellie and her discovering Alice, hearing the noises, going to the shed, frightened by the chickens, going back, offering the lollipop, calming Alice? Their gradually becoming friends, Ellie understanding Alice's need to lip-read? Introducing Sam to her? Their discussions, the poetry, the poem "The Tree"? Alice and her beginning to change, memorising the poem, reciting it for the grandmother? Ellie and Sam wanting the grandmother to tutor her, the question of the written permission, Alice's mother and the discussions about permission? The clothes? Ellie and her jumping into the water? Sam and his seeing Alice in the water, giving her his shirt, his embarrassment?
7. Ellie, her age, the tomboy, kind, vivacious, love for her father, the friendship with Alice, drawing her out of herself? Getting Sam to help? Her shrewdness, not understanding many adult situations? The necklace? Alice having the seizure, getting the doctor, giving him the necklace?
8. Sam, his age, clever, the letters for college, his father's severity with him? His father and his antagonistic attitude towards study? His sternness and forbidding them to go near the Guthries, the grandmother chiding him? His discovery of the truth, his anger, his pride in his children? Rescuing Alice, bringing her to their home?
9. The changes, Alice, the dresses, coming to live with them? The brutality of her stepfather, the doctor coming? The hearing aid and the transformation? The build-up of relationship with Sam, her sadness at his going, in his room? The books? The letters and his not replying? The Christmas visit and her anxiety? His return, the dance, the happiness together? Alice and the confrontation with her stepfather, the people watching, Jack and his challenging him?
10. The townspeople, the church sequence, the auctioning of the box-lunches? Bertha and her rudeness to Alice? Sam and his embarrassment, hurting her, apologising? The effect on Alice?
11. The effect on each of the characters of Alice being in the shed, her disabilities, her learning, her becoming part of society? The confrontation at the end? The happy resolution?
