Sarabeth (Christina Ricci) and her daughter, Melody (Gabrielle Popa) are living alone in their farmhouse in rural South Carolina. Sarabeth’s husband has left to fight in the war leaving the two girls behind unprotected from soldiers as well as one of the neighbors, Rufus (Kurt Yaeger) whose disability kept him out of the military. Rufus comes around, intent of getting food from Sarabeth but when she turns him away he assaults Melody on the road to the house, stealing what little food she has. When a battle erupts outside the farmstead leaving several soldiers on both sides dead, Melody discovers a wounded Union Soldier in their cellar, gravely injured and near death.
This soldier is Lt. Louis McIntire (Jason Gedrick), son of General Josiah McIntire (Tom Berenger). Josiah ordered his son to return home to the North to assist his mother and sisters is desperate times but Louis sees this as deserting his duties and returns to the battlefield. Wounded, he crawled into the cellar of Sarabeth’s home expecting to die from his wounds. But Sarabeth takes pity on him and, using her limited nursing abilities gained from patching up southern soldiers, nurses him slowly back to health. As time passes and he begins to regain his strength the two start to fall for each other, even though Sarabeth suspects, but doesn’t know for sure, that her husband has died in the war.
Right out the gate War Flowers is on shaky ground. The film opens up with a battle scene that looks about as authentic as a Civil War reenactment troop. There are small explosions and men being thrown through the air but it all looks cheaply done and is virtually bloodless. This has a feel to it of a film made for television on a shoestring budget and it’ll never escape that feeling. Even the props, tents, carriages, and uniforms look like they came from the prop department of a local community theater troop. Nothing looks genuinely period authentic. A director with a good sense of vision can turn a low budget production into something more than the sum of its budget. That doesn’t happen here. Instead the whole production just looks cheap.
To make matters even worse, most of the actors are woefully miscast. Christina Ricci is a fine actress but this part is all wrong for her. She is being tasked to speak in a southern accent that she cannot pull off and it comes and goes, sometimes in the same sentence. She’s pared with a child actress who delivers a performance akin to reading in monotone from a cue card. This gives Christina no real performance to bounce off of at first and you can see on screen that she is struggling to get any type of performance out of the little girl. This performance would effectively end her career with no other credited roles for nearly a decade.
Ricci is better working opposite Jason Gedrick who plays a credible Union Soldier. As an actor Jason is serviceable here but his character is predictably written. His father has ordered him home but we know immediately that’s not going to happen. The drama is telegraphed both in his interaction with his father and also with the convenient placement of a wounded soldier Louis had rescued earlier, a soldier who’s injuries will spur Louis to not abandon his troops no matter his orders. This type of personal conflict has been done to death in films going back to the early days of cinema and nothing new is done with it here.
Sarabeth and Melody face dangers from all sides. They face starvation as all the livestock is gone and most of the crops. Then there are Union Soldiers as well as despicable southern soldiers, one of whom tries to take advantage of Sarabeth. Then there’s Louis, whose very presence could cause issues should anyone find out she’s harboring an enemy soldier. Add to that Rufus, who, once Sarabeth and Melody venture out of the house, is quick to break in and attempt to steal all their valuables. Should he happen to see Louis he would be more than willing to sell them all out to the southern troops.
All of this should add up to some compelling drama. Should. But the overall production fails this picture. There is no suspension of belief because at no time is it convincing to look at. This is strictly amateur hour and even the principle actors seem to feel this and don’t bother to turn in any real performance. Christina Ricci was just coming off of Pan Am when she starred in this and watching her here you can tell she cared a lot more for playing Maggie on that series than she does Sarabeth. Either that or director Serge Rodnunsky had no idea how to direct his actors into performances that are even close to authentic.
War Flowers is a disappointing film all around. The performances are weak, the production is cheap looking, and the story is cliché. Director Serge Rodnunsky makes some truly odd choices when trying to convey an air of mystery, too. Several moments are meant to convey an almost mystical element to the drama, mostly in regard to the absent father and husband, but the way it’s filmed is bizarre and head scratching in its execution. Filters are used to make things surreal but all they succeed in doing is calling attention to the process rather than evoke a sense of wonder and mystery. The only good trick Serge pulls off is the twist at the end involving what actually happened to Sarabeth’s husband. The writing there was good but the acting by Gabriella is so wooden that it undercuts the emotion.
This is not a good film. It’s not even a merely competent film. It’s a drama written at a local theater production level with acting taken from the best available thespians in town. This feels amateur in nearly every aspect and thus fails to immerse viewers in the drama. It’s also glacially paced and many moments happen off-screen, told to us in exposition rather than being shown. There was not nearly enough budget for this film to pull off the time period and even if there was the script is riddled with clichés and overly telegraphed plot points. It has a message about love conquering political differences but that message has been told a thousand times before and told better than this. This film disappoints on so many levels that it is not recommended that anyone seek it out. Let this one fall by the wayside and disappear into a stream of better, more competently made films on this very same subject.
Release Date: February 22, 2012
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Christina Ricci, Jason Gedrick, Tom Berenger, Gabrielle Popa, Ben Foster and Kurt Yaeger
Directed By: Serge Rodnunsky
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