REEL CRITIC:’Georgia’ lacks rules of accuracy

Critics are lambasting “Georgia Rule” because it is dark when it was promoted as a comedy. That proves only that marketing a dark, dysfunctional comedy to a public who — they obviously figure — prefers cotton candy to stone soup isn’t easy. For centuries, comedy has been mixed with the darkest of tragedies, including many of Shakespeare’s best. Literature teachers call it “comic relief” and this film was a candidate for some of that. Let’s put the blame on its failure where it belongs.

This movie fails on two counts. The plot circles back and forward from truth, to perceived truth, to falsehood, to unintentional falsehood to … well, you get the idea. This illustrates the theme of the movie but it also interferes with the arc of the character changes.

Poor, young, bitter, victimized Rachel is played by Lindsay Lohan. She, Gary Marshall, the director, and Mark Andrus, the screenwriter, struggle to make the audience believe that there is something salvageable in her by letting her answer a jeopardy question on poetry correctly. We are to assume therein lies some character depth when her relapses go on ad infinitum. About the time we are nearly convinced she can be reclaimed, she tries to seduce her mentor, who is her mother’s ex-boyfriend, no less. At that point, I couldn’t be convinced by her knowledge of literature or anything else.

However, it is the lack of accuracy in research that dooms the movie. I can’t give the ending away. Suffice it to say, this reviewer was born and raised in Mormon country and though the movie got some things about a small, primarily Mormon community in Idaho right, the place where they get it really wrong is in that most vital scene, the last utterance of Harlan, Rachels’ on-again, off-again boyfriend. It is ludicrous and misleading on several levels.

It does not fit Harlan’s character, Rachel’s character, nor the tenets of the Mormon church. What Harlan proposes would be patently impossible barring a full-blown religious conversion on Rachel’s part (and there has been no suggestion or foreshadowing that this is a possibility). Or it would require Harlan to abandon his own religious beliefs — and that is hardly likely, considering he is about to leave on a mission for his church and has not indicated a weakened resolve in the matter.

So should you spend your money on “Georgia Rule”? I don’t know. The movie pickings these last few months are slim. I liked that the movie tackled some issues (like generational conflicts, the corrosive aspects of molestation, and addictions) that are rarely explored in movies the general public might enjoy.

I liked the quirky portrayal of Grandma Georgia (Jane Fonda), and even the oafish boyfriend (Garrett Hedlund). The acting was excellent on every count.

Still, it’s not a good thing when people leave the theater shaking their heads.