4/10 This movie blows, like Chloe Sevigny
What a piece of garbage this "film" is. I use the term film loosely, since this is obviously more of a play, as well as elements of a novel/audiobook in there too, what with the PARAGRAPHS AT A TIME of narration.
There's a little mantra that the director Lars von Trier, as well as many of you here, should become familiar with: "Show me, don't tell me"
This movie is all about telling things explicitly, with no art to it. I mean, like I said before, the narrator literally TELLS us things paragraphs at a time: "Grace felt sad. She felt like the chain that she carried around was a symbol for bla bla bla bla bla". Not to mention the dialogue in the car between James Caan & Nicole Kidman, which just spells things right out.
Chloe Sevigny is absolutely amateurish and awful in this. Her performance seriously felt like that of a high school drama student trying to play the role of a period-piece type character in the school play. The performances from the other actors are not much better, what with the terrible production qualities and camera work, as well as the fact that they all seem to be whispering all the damn time.
The theme of "Even 'good' people are really just pieces of scum", which, again, is delivered without a shred of subtlety or artistic feel, doesn't even fit in this particular case, because from the very beginning it is apparent that these people are not really very GOOD - they are Puritanical, judgmental, close-minded hillbilly idiots.
Besides, the actions of the townspeople make no sense whatsoever - Why would they keep her like a chained up slave the way they did? Why wasn't she free to leave the town - why did she have to try to escape in that guy's apple truck? It makes absolutely no sense, if you're trying to convey the message that these are "good everyday American people", that they would keep her captive and constantly rape her while preventing her from "escaping (why is she being held prisoner again?)".