John Stimpson's, The Legend of Lucy Keyes (2006), is a below average script gone wrong. As I sat in the theater, two things kept crossing my mind: Is this really the same Julie Deply I know from Blue (1993); followed by: has it been 93 minutes yet? Legend is about a middle-class family of city dwellers that have just moved to a New England country-side home in support of a windmill project being constructed by husband and father, Guy Cooley (Justin Theroux). Strange vibes exist from day one when not-so-friendly-neighbor/pig farmer Jonas Dodd (Mark Boone Junior) refuses to say hello to Guy, creating an uneasy tension?, later resulting in many weird unexplained scenes, including a bloody pigs head on a stick during a casual walk through the woods.
Meanwhile, Wife Jeanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) is constantly waking up in the middle of the night, hearing voices disguised as wind coming from the woods. Intertwined with her night terrors are flashbacks of her youngest daughter, who is now deceased, being struck by a car (we learn this information through dropped ice cream cones and screeching tires). The only point to establishing a dead daughter as a character is to reinforce the mothers need to keep her surviving children alive, as if we sympathize with the mom: "Jeanne has already lost one daughter, it would be a shame for her to lose another." No kidding.
It gets worse.
Through a town meeting filled with some of the most awkward dialog ever filmed, the superstitious ramblings of Gretchen Caswell (Jamie Donnelly) who is described as a "funny looking lady with white hair", inform us that "Martha's Land", where the windmills are being built, is haunted by a 250 year old ghost Martha (Rachel Harker), who is still involved in a never ending search for her abducted/murdered daughter Lucy Keyes.
Parallels between Jeanne Cooley and the Martha ghost begin to unfold (...basically their daughters have the same name...) which is shown in a flashback, yes another one, using the combined knowledge of the we-know-you're-in-danger-but-why-would-we-inform-you townspeople. The flashback depicts a 250 years old scene of "alive" Martha ringing a dinner bell to attract Lucy's attention, followed by Jeanne repeating the scene in present time. (Note the exquisite dialogue: "I got you a gift. You've always wanted a dinner bell") The inevitable disappearance of Lucy is delayed for what seems like hours. Finally, the Martha ghost (this is a ghost story, right?) appears and flies through a little crack in Lucy's window, but instead of grabbing Lucy as any childless mother ghost would, just stands still and allows the scary music to play. Eventually, Lucy goes missing and a search party is formed, just like it was 250 years ago and the cycle repeats itself (although no murders of Native Americans take place this time). The difference is, almost by some sort of psychic premonition (which would have made more sense than the way the scene actually played out), Jeanne and Guy find their daughter and finally the madness is over.
If my review seems all over the place, that simply means I succeeded in conveying the story.
But maybe I am being too harsh. There were a couple redeeming qualities of the film, and I must give credit where it is due. First off, I walked out of the theater much more appreciative of what a good movie actually looks like, and maybe the best part of all: it happened to be a free screening.
Meanwhile, Wife Jeanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) is constantly waking up in the middle of the night, hearing voices disguised as wind coming from the woods. Intertwined with her night terrors are flashbacks of her youngest daughter, who is now deceased, being struck by a car (we learn this information through dropped ice cream cones and screeching tires). The only point to establishing a dead daughter as a character is to reinforce the mothers need to keep her surviving children alive, as if we sympathize with the mom: "Jeanne has already lost one daughter, it would be a shame for her to lose another." No kidding.
It gets worse.
Through a town meeting filled with some of the most awkward dialog ever filmed, the superstitious ramblings of Gretchen Caswell (Jamie Donnelly) who is described as a "funny looking lady with white hair", inform us that "Martha's Land", where the windmills are being built, is haunted by a 250 year old ghost Martha (Rachel Harker), who is still involved in a never ending search for her abducted/murdered daughter Lucy Keyes.
Parallels between Jeanne Cooley and the Martha ghost begin to unfold (...basically their daughters have the same name...) which is shown in a flashback, yes another one, using the combined knowledge of the we-know-you're-in-danger-but-why-would-we-inform-you townspeople. The flashback depicts a 250 years old scene of "alive" Martha ringing a dinner bell to attract Lucy's attention, followed by Jeanne repeating the scene in present time. (Note the exquisite dialogue: "I got you a gift. You've always wanted a dinner bell") The inevitable disappearance of Lucy is delayed for what seems like hours. Finally, the Martha ghost (this is a ghost story, right?) appears and flies through a little crack in Lucy's window, but instead of grabbing Lucy as any childless mother ghost would, just stands still and allows the scary music to play. Eventually, Lucy goes missing and a search party is formed, just like it was 250 years ago and the cycle repeats itself (although no murders of Native Americans take place this time). The difference is, almost by some sort of psychic premonition (which would have made more sense than the way the scene actually played out), Jeanne and Guy find their daughter and finally the madness is over.
If my review seems all over the place, that simply means I succeeded in conveying the story.
But maybe I am being too harsh. There were a couple redeeming qualities of the film, and I must give credit where it is due. First off, I walked out of the theater much more appreciative of what a good movie actually looks like, and maybe the best part of all: it happened to be a free screening.