Fresh out of prison, a Scottish woman juggles her job and two children while pursuing her dream of becoming a country music star. She soon gets her chance when she travels to Nashville, Tenn., on a life-changing journey to discover her true voice.
After the release of 'a star is born' a few months ago, the next big musical story film is about a young Scottish country singer who longs to make it to Nashville to pursue her dream of being a big time country musician. This film really surprised me actually and definitely took a completely different path, this film showed a real and down to Earth perception of a struggling woman which was sent across to us really powerfully using a variety of different techniques and clever features. Throughout the film, there were plenty of interesting and exciting decisions which not only helped to make the film unique but also to establish Rose as a really unique and standout character. This leaves us with the underlying question. Is Wild Rose a rose between two thorns or is it just a rip off of 'A Star is Born'?
I'll start off with what I liked about this film, right from the very beginning we were introduced to the main character in a really clever and important way - by instantly showing us key parts of her life such as being in prison, to her reception at the club and at home we were instantly able to get a really important grip on the type of character that she was. The really informal and direct conversations between the characters at the beginning not only help to entertain us by using humour but also they help to introduce the rest of the characters really nicely by giving us a good representation of the types of personalities they have as well as their relationships that they share with one another which leaves a strong and important foundation for the rest of the film. The most important character in this though is Jessie Buckley and right from the beginning, her character feels authentic, powerful and engaging - enough to really make the character seem believable and emotionally engaging. At times she's so strong that other actors looked really weak. For the most part the supporting actors somewhat let the film down. But Buckley is the star attraction anyway and she does an amazing job at establishing the character, showing the characters emotions and really helping to make scenes exciting and powerful when she's on the screen. The film was also really clever in other ways too throughout the film, I loved how it really nicely showed essentially two sides to the Rose character and the struggles to maintain both lives (performing vs a Mother) - as well as the stress that this had on her too and the impact on her relationships with other characters. As well as this, the emotions during the film were really well executed which often left us really engaged in key scenes and dialogue between characters because of the realistic emotion that was behind the characters - this ensured that main scenes in the film were really believable and actually had some fire to help en-thrill the audience. I also liked how well characters were represented too, not only did this help us to get a better idea of who they were but it also helped us to understand character decisions and emotions even better - seeing Rose's childish nature and it's impact on her family was powerful and really allowed us to get into the shoes of the various characters and see things from their perspectives. The characters also adapt and change to keep the film fresh and interesting too - events and dialogue between characters feels meaningful and powerful and relationships change and evolve which keeps them interesting and engaging to watch - especially as we are able to see actively how events and character emotions have an important effect on others and this is relayed to us very well. Not only do the characters help to really lighten up this film and make it seem realistic and believable but also the character dialogue is key in demonstrating how Rose is perceived by her family. That is one of the key things I liked about this film - the ways in which characters interacted and spoke to each other depending on the circumstances was really engaging because it was changing so much depending on the current events and this was relayed to us in a way that made the film engaging and en-thrilling. This movie was great because it went well beyond what the audience saw, it had a massive psychological backdrop, it had something to say about, dreams, family, hope, sacrifice, motherhood and even the value of tough love - it was real.
As well as the good character variety in the film I was also impressed by the plot choice and how well this was relayed to us. The plot was fairly simple but contained a lot of scenes and switches which kept the film fresh and unpredictable, it really cleverly shows where characters want to be and their emotions and dreams which gives the films story-line a really exciting and personal touch because we see how important it is to the overall story-line. The story in this film is unique and I liked that because it means that the film stands out, sure there are other films like 'A Star is Born' but none which show the realistic and down to Earth nature of an ex convict country singer and that's what helps this film to stand out. It also packs a powerful punch because of the risks that were taken during the film too, it's clear that many of the scenes aren't typical or plain because they all seem to link in somewhere into the film and there is always something exciting and fun happening which keeps the film fun throughout. The music in the film is also really important to the films plot, not only does it help to represent moods but it also has a really powerful impact of getting us in the mood as-well and just building us up for scenes. But I don't like country music you might say? Neither do I, my music taste is completely different. But it hardly matters. As long as you don't absolutely hate it, I predict you'll tolerate the tunes and enjoy the movie.
This film wasn't perfect at all though and I found myself with quite a few problems at the end. The main problem for me was that I don't feel there were nearly enough explanations or reasons as to why certain decisions were made or why certain characters did things - such as Rose arguing and fighting with the musician and this just meant that for me, there were so many scenes which just didn't make 100% sense and left me confused as to why they were happening and what their relevance was. This held the whole film back as it also made the secondary characters seem somewhat confusing too, they lack the engagement and raw emotion from 'A Star is Born' that made the characters so multi dimensional and powerful. Apart from Rose, none of the characters in this film felt powerful, engaging or even remotely exciting and this caused a large problem because it felt like Rose had to drag scenes with her to keep them interesting - simply because the rest of the cast had little/no engagement with the audience which left us uninterested in other scenes which could've been captured so much better if the characters had been focused on just a little bit more. This also let's down many of the risks that were taken by the film's producers because where interesting and potentially exciting scenes are happening - there simply isn't a strong enough set of characters to make these scenes interesting and exciting where Rose isn't on screen.
I was also fairly confused as to the origins of the relationships and how they changed throughout the film too, the children seemed to hate their mother one scene and absolutely adore them the next and this quick change of relationship was apparent throughout the film and really made them feel unrealistic and plain because they changed so much depending on what the producer wanted us to see, not what would have the best impact. This then in turn makes character attitudes and opinions somewhat confusing because we don't know if it is actually meaningful or not. As well as this, there were a lot of scenes and events which I could tell were meant to have a strong impact but they just didn't really - such as seeing her come back from Nashville. She had worked her whole life to get there and then she just seemed to give up without really giving it any emotion or motivation - I understand that she realised that everyone else there had the same dream and felt she didn't need to be there but for the film to build it up and let us down like that wasn't the most enjoyable sequence in a film I've seen.
Overall, I would give this film a 7.5. It tries, it really does and even though Jessie Buckley puts in a really solid performance as Rose - I still feel that overall, the rest of the characters aren't powerful enough to make the film really engaging or to create the raw emotion and engagement of 'A Star is Born' and that is a real disappointment. Although the film doesn't want us to idolise Rose because she's bad and down, but it aims to tell us a story and show her side and it does do this well. The film also had a strong plot and it was relayed somewhat decently, however I simply cannot overlook the poor sense of background characters, the lack of a real raw emotion behind the characters and the set of scenes which just seemed to create confusion more than anything else really and that's why I've given the film a 7.5 rating. Overall would I recommend this film? Maybe, it depends really if you're into this kind of 0-100 hero story film or not, if you are then you may agree with others who thought this was better than 'A Star is Born', if you aren't then I'd probably say not to go and see it really because there are a decent selection of other films out at the moment that would probably offer better viewing pleasure.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it and watching the movie. As mentioned before, I have tickets to Marvel Endgame midnight release - I have a spare ticket too so if you'd like a FREE ticket to the midnight release and you have an unlimited card then drop me a message!
Have a great day! :)
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