A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Writer/Director: Deborah Kampmeier
Stars: Dakota Fanning, David Morse, Piper Laurie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415856/
Watched online, ok print.
18 songs in the Soundtracks, 4 are Elvis Presley recordings.
I don't know what's supposed to be so precocious about this girl (DF). She's not a good singer, she's not wise to the ways of teen boys, and she doesn't manipulate anyone for her own benefit.
Instead, DF gets raped by a teen who promises her a ticket to the Elvis performance, and the rape was an unexpected outcome for her and for her little boyfriend who set it up. He thought she was just going to have to show her full body to the teen, just as she had negotiated bf to do for her. (They're not gf/bf in any romantic sense. They're the pair on the bottom of the poster. They're just a boy & a girl who are pre-teen friends.)
Before the miserable rape scene, DM (her father) is pretty mean to DF, and he left home for a time leaving his gf there to "take care" of her. They think he's gone forever, but he returns and shortly thereafter gets hit by lightning while on his tractor in a field. He survives, but is now nearly a complete idiot.
The girl is PL's granddaughter, DM the son-in-law, whom PL forced to marry her daughter when he got her pregnant with the girl. PL had another daughter, who was DM's actual gf back then, but PL banished her from the home. So this other daughter, namely DF's aunt, wants to take her away and raise her (PL holds her off with a shotgun). Why does she want DF? She needs someone to take care of, and if PL hadn't forced DM to marry her sister, she might have had a daughter with him. Well, she doesn't seem much more presentable/educated than the kin DF has already been living with, but after the rape DF is ready to leave. The last thing we see is DF yelling to DM that she loves him, and as she walks away DM gets bit by a rattlesnake that he and PL thought they'd caught in the yard, and PL announces she's gonna get some whiskey for him to drink. Earlier we'd been told that's a good way to accelerate the effects of the poison, although PL might think it's an antidote. The End.
Yes, DF loved EP's music, but listened to his concert from afar, now associating her gyrating (naked) performance of it as the "cause" of her rape.
Really, why did this film need to get made? Why do we need to see a child raped?
Avoid.
Rated 6.3 (5,640)
indie, dir. Kampmeier; 5
