Virginia

An Overcrowded And Underdeveloped Story Bolstered By Several Strong Performances
After winning a Screenplay Oscar for "Milk," Dustin Lance Black probably had a fair amount of freedom and leverage to pursue a project that meant something personal to him. The intimate and quirky "Virginia" is undoubtedly the result of that liberation (and I'm sure it didn't hurt that Milk's director Gus Van Sant got an Executive Producer credit as well). Taking the directorial reigns and writing the screenplay for "Virginia," Black proves that he has no shortage of ideas. While that definitely makes "Virginia" feel different, it also makes it seem overstuffed and slightly schizophrenic. The story veers from comedy and satire to tragedy and melodrama and never feels particularly cohesive. Furthermore, so many plot threads (and even characters) are introduced only to languish as undefined, underutilized, or completely irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I think there's an interesting story at the heart of "Virginia." I just thought the movie lacked sufficient follow-through for the...

Great cast. Great acting. Movie was good but I was hoping for better. Depressing but very much worth watching. I say B.
"Dear Lord please let each of us come out of this in one piece." Virginia (Connelly) is a single mother raising her teen son in a small town. She is not sure of who the father is but she has been having an affair with the local married sheriff (Harris) for almost 20 years and wants it to be his. When he announces his run for state senate things begin to get tricky. This is a very hard movie to explain there seems to be a lot of sub plots going on but it is not hard to keep up with them. Connelly plays the character perfect and while she is psychologically disturbed it is not over the top at all and very believable. I enjoyed this but to me this is another example of a movie's cast being better then the movie. This is still very much worth watching and is one of the better indie movies to come out in a long time it is still a little slow. This movie is very emotional though and really runs you through as many as it can before the ending which is great. Overall, great acting really...

Worth seeing just for Connelly
It is nice to see an actress step out of their comfort zone (I am talking to you Jennifer Aniston) and try something different. Jennifer Connelly usually doesn't play mentally unhinged women but she excels at it in Virginia. It's a shame her talent is wasted by Dustin Lance Black's poor script, and poor direction. If he was more competent doing his job, Jennifer Connelly would be getting more critical acclaim for her work here. This is the best she has been in her career and that is saying a lot considering she won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind and rave reviews with Requiem for a Dream. The movie is all over the place and the only saving grace is the work of the actors. They are all superb with Connelly the stand out.

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