TIFF Review: In Bloom

Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) and Maureen (Eva Amurri) are two average high-school students, chatting and killing time in the girl's bathroom one day when their conversation is interrupted by a noise from way off in the distance. It sounds like a bundle of firecrackers being set off, and causes them to quickly shut up and perk up their ears. The sounds are repeated, closer and louder, and before they have time to react to what is happening the bathroom door bursts open and a troubled, wild-eyed student is suddenly walking toward them, pointing a machine gun. This is the opening of In Bloom, the new, much-anticipated film from Vadim Perelman, director of House of Sand and Fog and the upcoming Angelina Jolie film, Atlas Shrugged. Based on Laura Kasischke's novel The Life Before Her Eyes, In Bloom follows two parallel timelines: one that begins in the weeks preceding that opening scene and one that jumps ahead a good fifteen years, focusing on a much-changed Diana, now being played by a jumpy and tense Uma Thurman.

The exact timeline of the film is left murky, with the scenes featuring Young Diana no different, stylistically, than the 'present day' scenes. Young Diana doesn't appear at all to be living in the past, and Older Diana doesn't inhabit any kind of futuristic world. It's a somewhat puzzling, but acceptable dramatic choice for Perelman to make, and he presses the intimate connection between the two timeframes by aggressively juxtaposing them. Scenes in Young Diana's world sometimes have a duration of only a few seconds, before we cut back to Older Diana's world for a few more seconds, and so on. Older Diana is an average teacher with a husband and an emotionally troubled daughter, but she still focuses much of her energy on replaying that day in her mind over and over, torturing herself for some reason that's unknown to us. Until the closing moments, Perelman chooses to hide from us exactly what happened in that bathroom, although it's not much of a mystery. I had already written the correct answer in my notes fifteen minutes into the film.

Perelman seems to be quite taken with Evan Rachel Wood's face and body -- not that I blame him -- devoting shot after luxurious, carefully-staged shot to her diving and swimming or sprawled out in bed or a million other poses. The effect is to give her character a breezy, carefree spirit that's completely absent in the present-day incarnation. As played by Thurman, Diana is driven by an invisible anxiety and seemingly always prepared for the worst. She stares and puzzles over every word her young daughter says as they eat some frozen yogurt, and when the daughter pipes up that she'd rather have had ice cream, Diana curtly reminds her that frozen yogurt is better for you. So what happened to turn an angelic layabout into a twitchy, volatile health-Nazi? Again, Perlman doesn't want you to know until the time is right. Putting all of his eggs into that basket turns out to be something of a mistake, because the way the chips fall doesn't exactly create the kind of emotional payoff that the audience is expecting by that point.

Wood is an actress of growing reputation, and In Bloom gives her an opportunity to do some good work, playing a character who makes small attempts at being rebellious -- swimming in a neighbor's pool uninvited, dating a local bad boy -- but is probably just as naturally conservative as Maureen, who is on a religious kick and seems prepared for the life of a boring Christian, as Diana notes. She's too bright to get into any serious trouble, and there's one resonant scene in the present-day when the two incarnations of her character tie together nicely. Breaking down into tears after getting some bad news, Older Diana begins to defend herself, saying that she always thought if she cared for her daughter, helped her students and loved her husband, things would turn out right for her. She's a character who is fundamentally able to grasp how random tragedy continues to find her. In Bloom is structurally uneven at times, and definitely not as profound in its revelations as it wants to be, but with strong acting and a strong visual palette, it's a success.