Review: White Bird in a Blizzard
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
In adapting Laura Kasischke's White Bird in a Blizzard, Araki seems beholden to his source material.
City Paper grade: C-
A master of disillusion, Gregg Araki had always identified with the struggle for identity, his queer-focused films unfolding with little regard for the standards of the normies who operate outside the conversation. But in adapting Laura Kasischke’s White Bird in a Blizzard, Araki seems beholden to his source material, producing a stilted coming-of-age tale that has his voice but none of the usual energy. On paper it seems like a match: Kasischke’s Kat (Shailene Woodley), growing into her teenage body fast in the late ’80s, begins exploring her sexuality just as her long-miserable mother (Eva Green) vanishes. It’s not intended to be a whodunit, but speculation about the disappearance ends up being more compelling than any of the directions Araki attempts to aim the conversation — that includes her interactions with her meek father (Christopher Meloni), relationship with the boy next door (Shiloh Fernandez) and dalliances with the detective (Thomas Jane) handling her mom’s case. Too deliberate to be a murder mystery and too surface to stand alone as a character-driven drama, it’s some of Araki’s flattest work — a shame, since Woodley is more than capable of being his type of heroine.
