Tumbleweeds: Movie, DVD Review (2009)

Directed by Gavin O'Connor, written by O'Connor and Angela Shelton, 102 minutes, rated PG-13.

Gavin O’Connor’s “Tumbleweeds” is the trailer-trash version of Wayne Wang’s “Anywhere but Here.” Of the many, many reasons audiences should run to rent it or add it to their Netflix queue, the foremost reason is Janet McTeer’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Mary Jo Walker, a loose Southern woman with big hair and a bigger heart whose place in life is more fragile and uncertain than she’d like to admit.

McTeer, the British stage actress who won a Tony Award for her acclaimed portrayal of Nora in Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” marks her film debut here--and what a debut it is. Without a trace of her English accent, McTeer becomes Mary Jo so completely and so effortlessly, her transformation in on par with Vivien Leigh’s in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Certainly, Mary Jo relies on the kindness of strangers. With her 12-year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly Brown) in tow, Mary Jo has made a life out of going from man to man--and state to state.

A natural at making wrong choices, she’s been married countless times and can never seem to get it right. She’s too quick to settle, too desperate for love and security to really care--and too insecure to do much about it. Her life is what she’s made it, and she’s made it a mess.

After a vicious breakup with a former beau, Mary Jo and Anna hit the road and head West to San Diego, where Mary Jo meets the hulking trucker Jack Ranson (played superbly by director and co-writer O’Connor), and falls into the same trap of making ridiculous compromises so she can have a man in her life.

Honest, moving and often funny, “Tumbleweeds” is a character-driven drama about relationships that never presents Mary Jo as a victim. It’s smarter than that. Instead, the film allows her to find her way with the help of a daughter who’s already seen it all at the age of 12--and who doesn’t care to see much more.

Grade: A