THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE (1994) (FORBIDDEN CHOICES)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2002
Like almost any other filmgoer, the author of this review has, from time to time, expected one sort of film only to watch another. One of such surprises happened with THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE 1994 drama directed by Jennifer Warren. In my country it was advertised as psychological thriller about young bride having to deal with violent father-in-law. Yet the plot, based on the novel by Carolyn Chute, deals with something quite different - life of a impoverished family of loggers in rural Maine. Protagonist is Earlene Pomerleau (played by Martha Plimpton), young woman who lives next door to the home of Beans, dysfunctional family whose violent and sociopathic ways gave them notoriety even among their white trash neighbours. Much to the discontent of her own Bible-thumping family, Earlene spends most of her days watching Beans, especially young and handsome Beal (played by Patrick McGaw) and after a while bears his baby. Earlene starts living with Beal, but this life is far anything but idyllic - faced with incredible poverty, every day she has to prevent her children from starving, while Beal starts adulterous relationship with his stepmother Roberta (played by Kelly Lynch).
There are few modern-day Hollywood films that deal with life in impoverished rural areas in modern-day America and show that poverty, ignorance, violence and other forms of social pathology aren't exclusive domain of ethnic minorities. The opportunity for portrayal of poor rural whites was unfortunately missed by actress-turned-director Jennifer Warren. Although she doesn't stay clear of naturalistic depictions of human misery (best embodied in scenes that show Beans having to hunt for food in order to merely survive), her lack of directorial skills manifests itself in episodic structure of plot being incoherent and sometimes even incomprehensible by the viewer. Naturalism of the film is compromised by some bad casting choices, mostly in the case of Kelly Lynch who looks too glamorous for white trash matron. There are plenty of other wasted opportunities, and one of them is Rutger Hauer, whose excellent performance as violent patriarch of Bean clan is used only in few scenes at the beginning and the end. The finale lacks catharsis, but at the time most of the viewers have probably lost any interest for THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
Review written on September 10th 2002
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English
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