Citizen Jane is an exceptionally well acted film, including the supporting roles. Nia Peeples, for example, is unaffectedly charming as Jane's warm hearted, loyal girlfriend, and Frank Pesce is effective and frightening as Vergil, the wife-hitting handyman. But the three main characters, Jane Alexander (Ally Sheedy), Jack Morris (Meat Loaf Aday) and Tom O'Donnell (Sean Patrick Flanary) are the most interesting, not only because they are so well portrayed, but also because they are not static, and all three actors are very successful in showing us how their respective characters change during the course of the movie. One undergoes a gradual personal evolution; one dons a mask as a tool but drops it whenever it's not needed; and one finally drops his disguise involuntarily, exposing what lies beneath.
Ally Sheedy's Jane Alexander is girlishly in love with Tom O'Donnell when the story begins. She has given him complete control of her finances, but her implicit trust speaks more to her need to avoid responsibility than to a relationship based upon mutual respect. When Jane, her head slightly lowered but her eyes looking up, says to Tom, "I love you so much!" Ally Sheedy shows us an insecure middle aged woman with the demeanor of a teenage girl. When her aunt is murdered, we see Jane's pain and anger, but this is followed by a period of ineffectual frustration. Her conflicted emotions are apparent when she tells Tom, "I can't go anywhere now!" with a tiny, defensive smile. Her turning point comes when Jack convinces her of Tom's guilt, and throughout the rest of the movie, we see Jane's growing self-reliance and determination to see justice served. Jane's success, as an ordinary citizen, in helping to put a murderer behind bars is inspiring. But the greater story here is what she gains while working toward this accomplishment, and what Ally Sheedy so skillfully portrays: Jane's personal transformation into a capable, confident, positively glowing woman.
Meat Loaf Aday is Jack Morris, the detective whose professional style is summed up by his line, "Me talking' ain't the point." We learn that this doesn't necessarily mean that he rarely speaks, but rather that his whole aim in talking to a suspect is to elicit a response. Even when he wants to make an impression, such as his disarming friendliness in the lemonade scene, he does it in such a way as to redirect Jane and Tom's attention away from him and back to themselves. As the movie begins we know little of Jack's personality, except that he is a calm, unflappable man who speaks in soft, measured tones, but whose cool, intent gaze makes us feel that few details escape him. He could not be described as warm. But later, when Jack is sure that Jane is innocent, and shows up at her door saying "You got some coffee?" we understand that he has been wearing a mask, and has now taken it off, at least for Jane. Meat Loaf's performance is nicely nuanced; his Jack trades one set of subtleties for another, but from this point onward he is obviously sympathetic to Jane and as the story progresses, behaves more genuinely toward her. In a particularly touching scene he presses his lips together and affectionately squeezes Jane's arm in support, before going in to interrogate Tom. Contrast his natural warmth in this scene with the insinuating but chilly smile he shows Tom moments later, or his cold, knowing amusement earlier in the film, after reading aloud from the FBI profile. Meat Loaf expertly paints a portrait of a professional who can completely mask his own emotions in order to present a face of his own choosing to suspects.
Sean Patrick Flanary plays Tom O'Donnell, who murders Jane's aunt in cold blood, planning to live with Jane off the proceeds of the estate, only giving up on this idea after Jack "stirs the pot" and spooks him, but entertaining it again briefly after Jane visits him in jail. Flanary has said in an interview on the Hallmark Channel website that he felt Tom compartmentalized his actions and actually believed what he did was right, for the greater good. Whether this is true or whether Tom O'Donnell was a psychopath fully aware of his own motives is moot; Sean Patrick Flanary's performance is believable either way; believable and also endlessly interesting, because we are constantly looking for clues to his personality. We're given few, however, until the very end of the movie, when Tom drops his mask suddenly, in a chilling and absolutely stunning display of previously hidden brutality.
Citizen Jane is an absorbing movie with uplifting messages about justice, determination and perseverance, and these messages are all the more powerful for the story's basis in fact. It is also enjoyably suspenseful, but since the facts of this true story are known at the outset, the plot line itself cannot provide this type of interest; instead, the excellent acting, scripting, and well-developed characterization make the film riveting.
-Kathy Borror, 16 September 2009
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