R140, Lawn Dogs is the only film that ever made me openly cry.
I have never seen a coming-of-age movie that is quite as unsettling or arresting. I went into it the first time thinking it would be a run-of-the-mill, indie-spirit, self-aware style-junkie flick, full of deliberately weird and annoying camera angles,many not much in the way of substance or insight. I was taken aback, and utterly transported by a Surrealist, Southern Gothic morality tale, replete with straightforward but powerful storytelling. The underlying question is one of trust--how precious it is, and how easy it is to lay our trust with the wrong person, and how terrifying the consequences of a violated trust can be.
I was astounded by its lack of pretension, the startling and almost uncomfortable sincerity, and the brave, deft and taunt handling of a taboo subject (sexualisation of children). A lonely, traumatised, and conservatively raised little girl named Devon (Mischa Barton), new to her small rural town and recently emerged from heart surgery, takes a shine to a lonely, traumatised and impoverished young man named Trent (Sam Rockwell), over twice her age, who she simply finds interesting, and never stops to question why it is she puts her trust in him. He, by contrast, is stricken by panic, fear and mistrust of the wealthy vipers whose lawns he mows for pittance, knowing they will string him up for befriending a preteen girl, yet he platonically falls for her, anyway, desperately alone as he feels.
In fact, reviewers lauded the sexual tension between the two leads, which comes across beautifully onscreen as barely there, latent, but burgeoning and undeniable. There's an edgy erotic spark between the scarred introverts, stuck in black hearted, bluegrass suburbia---Rockwell has a lapdog appeal that earnest, hardworking and sweet, and frustratingly willing to stay in a rut, yet wracked by a world weariness and very aware of how to use his own physical attractiveness and appeal to beg for scraps. Barton has a wide-eyed but knowing aura, this crackling electricity that energises scenes around her, and seems to roll rather than cover her eyes at the sex-obsessed adults in her midst. Both are used shamelessly by other characters for their bodies and their youthful energy. I could not look away in their scenes together--both actors (and characters) seem painfully aware that with just six or seven years fewer in age between them, a deeply sexual relationship would have grown between them as well as an emotional one. It is never explicitly acknowledged or acted upon, of course, which is the only relief in a tense, captivating and frankly nauseating screenplay.
The paranoia that chokes their romantic friendship is the tragic element of the movie. Unspoken is the fact that really, it is Trent's poverty and lack of education and prospects that the adults in Devon's life fear and reject, rather than his age and his gender, and that the community will use any excuse, no matter how wrong or how slanderous to run Trent and his kind out of town.I have never wanted to rescue two characters from their own story more than Devon and Trent.
The filmmaking itself is erotic, provocative and bracing. There's saturated and dark colour everywhere, blood red and forest green, and open space and huge horizons and pans, despite the majority of the action taking place in a trailer, and a walled off suburban commune. It's a film that is not afraid to be visually beautiful and glittering, in spite of the seemingly mundane and gritty subject matter.
For a fable of class, and a tale of prepubescent desire and impulse, it's jarringly honest. It feels like it belongs in a European pagan storybook, or an Old West compendium--a bizarre blend of Heidi, The Crucible, and Baba Yaga. The story is a slow, languid, almost sensual wander to the conclusion, which hits like a storm. I read a review shortly after that described it as both 'sparkling' and 'queasy', which I wholeheartedly agree with---the hypocrisy of certain characters made me feel physically ill at points, while the cinematography made me pause the movie in places, just to drink in the scenery. It is shocking in its simplicity and precocity, and it's daring enough to practically scream in the face of the audience, 'tell me what's wrong with this picture'.
It is a must see, and I never say that. It is best described as uneasy, dangerous visual poetry. It's Lynch-esque, a blend of beauty and psych-horror. It is quiet and trembling and really cuts deep. It is twisted, morbid, lovely, and defiantly NOT a retelling of Lolita.
You may or may not enjoy it, but you will never forget it. It is that good, and that sad.
