I'm not sure but these regionally restricted Southern stories seem to divide themselves into two types. In the first type, we get a series of character sketches, anecdotes without much narrative glue to hold them together. Beth Henley's stories come to mind, and slightly melancholy tales like "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter." In the other category fall stories like "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Streetcar Named Desire", dramas in which events unfold apparently in accordance with some greater cosmic plan.
"Houndog" has its feet firmly planted in Type Number One. We are witness to Dakota Fanning's tragedies and triumphs as the bony but spirited preadolescent grows up in rural Southern poverty. What sustains her through loss, betrayal, and rape is her love for the music of Elvis Presley -- "Houndog" in particular.
Southerners, like New York Jews, may be among our best story tellers. Both groups are still somewhat marginal, though much less so, and have a sharp eye for small characterological details. And they have a way with words.
When writers come up with a tale like "Houndog" it's sometimes possible to feel that you're watching, not so much a movie with a plot, but a cinematic tribal study. You get to know what they eat and how they prepare it, what they wear, what's in their back yards, what they consider normal and what's slightly bizarro. You see the houses they live in, mostly dilapidated shacks. You see the muddy but refreshing swimming hole. And in this film you get to see a lot of the snakes they have to contend with. (I think the snakes may "stand for" something but I don't know exactly what.) The snake before the opening credits is probably a rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata). The one that Fanning picks up by the cornfield looks like a southern hognose snake (Heterodon simus) but I wouldn't bet the turnip patch on it. At one point, the stereotypical avuncular black man skins a rattler preparatory to eating it but the skin he hangs up to dry looks like that of a southern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix).
Sorry about all the snake stuff but they figure prominently in the movie and I found my mind dwelling on them during some of the story's longueurs.
Dakota Fanning is quite a skilled little actress. She's got the character of the tomboyish kid down pat. And despite her little-girl figure she's careless about modesty, always running around in a loose dress, recklessly but innocently showing the crotch of her underpants to a pimply older adolescent, who finally violates her.
Piper Laurie is good too. She's a lumpy, slow-moving, grandmother here, overwhelmed by her own piety. I wonder if she found it ironic that she once played Elvis Presley's girl friend in a 1950s movie.
David Morse, as Fanning's daddy, is saddled with a role no one should have to play -- a self-indulgent slob who shacks up with women he brings home. Well, he pays for his sins. Of course, we ALL pay for our sins but his premium is especially colorful. He's out in the field on his tractor during a thunderstorm. The machine is struck by lightning and Morse is lifted bodily out of the seat, twirled around in the air like a doll being flung, and turned into a good-natured zombie with the intelligence quotient of a long-leaf pine tree. He wanders around naked while the bad guys in the pool room jab him in the belly with their cue sticks and whack his toes. At the end, he gets bit by a rattler too. I'm telling you, the guy pays for his sins.
The fact is, though, that none of the acting falls short of being really good. But, alas, the script can't avoid its clichés. That black guy who gives such good advice and knows how to treat puncture wound and venomous snake bites. He even has a hypodermic syringe and, apparently, some anti-venom on hand. The victim he treats recovers far too quickly. At some point her pretty leg would look like a Smithfield ham. And the scene in which Fanning, after her rape and a period of illness and mutism, rediscovers her strength through singing "Houndog" at the black guy's urging, reaching "deep into yo' self" and singing it now not as an imitation of Elvis but in her own style. Okay, we get the message, but the camera lingers too long on Fanning's suffering features. At this point, the director rushes in from off screen holding a cue card that reads: "Cry." There are only two "good people" in the movie: Uncle Tom and a compassionate woman we hardly get to know. It's getting a little tiresome seeing young girls beaten down by men and religion without ever being defeated.
I've kind of poked fun at it but I watched it with interest from beginning to end, even as I managed to avoid the more obvious attempts at manipulation. It's by no means a "bad" or insulting movie and there's a lot of talent on display.
"Houndog" has its feet firmly planted in Type Number One. We are witness to Dakota Fanning's tragedies and triumphs as the bony but spirited preadolescent grows up in rural Southern poverty. What sustains her through loss, betrayal, and rape is her love for the music of Elvis Presley -- "Houndog" in particular.
Southerners, like New York Jews, may be among our best story tellers. Both groups are still somewhat marginal, though much less so, and have a sharp eye for small characterological details. And they have a way with words.
When writers come up with a tale like "Houndog" it's sometimes possible to feel that you're watching, not so much a movie with a plot, but a cinematic tribal study. You get to know what they eat and how they prepare it, what they wear, what's in their back yards, what they consider normal and what's slightly bizarro. You see the houses they live in, mostly dilapidated shacks. You see the muddy but refreshing swimming hole. And in this film you get to see a lot of the snakes they have to contend with. (I think the snakes may "stand for" something but I don't know exactly what.) The snake before the opening credits is probably a rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata). The one that Fanning picks up by the cornfield looks like a southern hognose snake (Heterodon simus) but I wouldn't bet the turnip patch on it. At one point, the stereotypical avuncular black man skins a rattler preparatory to eating it but the skin he hangs up to dry looks like that of a southern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix).
Sorry about all the snake stuff but they figure prominently in the movie and I found my mind dwelling on them during some of the story's longueurs.
Dakota Fanning is quite a skilled little actress. She's got the character of the tomboyish kid down pat. And despite her little-girl figure she's careless about modesty, always running around in a loose dress, recklessly but innocently showing the crotch of her underpants to a pimply older adolescent, who finally violates her.
Piper Laurie is good too. She's a lumpy, slow-moving, grandmother here, overwhelmed by her own piety. I wonder if she found it ironic that she once played Elvis Presley's girl friend in a 1950s movie.
David Morse, as Fanning's daddy, is saddled with a role no one should have to play -- a self-indulgent slob who shacks up with women he brings home. Well, he pays for his sins. Of course, we ALL pay for our sins but his premium is especially colorful. He's out in the field on his tractor during a thunderstorm. The machine is struck by lightning and Morse is lifted bodily out of the seat, twirled around in the air like a doll being flung, and turned into a good-natured zombie with the intelligence quotient of a long-leaf pine tree. He wanders around naked while the bad guys in the pool room jab him in the belly with their cue sticks and whack his toes. At the end, he gets bit by a rattler too. I'm telling you, the guy pays for his sins.
The fact is, though, that none of the acting falls short of being really good. But, alas, the script can't avoid its clichés. That black guy who gives such good advice and knows how to treat puncture wound and venomous snake bites. He even has a hypodermic syringe and, apparently, some anti-venom on hand. The victim he treats recovers far too quickly. At some point her pretty leg would look like a Smithfield ham. And the scene in which Fanning, after her rape and a period of illness and mutism, rediscovers her strength through singing "Houndog" at the black guy's urging, reaching "deep into yo' self" and singing it now not as an imitation of Elvis but in her own style. Okay, we get the message, but the camera lingers too long on Fanning's suffering features. At this point, the director rushes in from off screen holding a cue card that reads: "Cry." There are only two "good people" in the movie: Uncle Tom and a compassionate woman we hardly get to know. It's getting a little tiresome seeing young girls beaten down by men and religion without ever being defeated.
I've kind of poked fun at it but I watched it with interest from beginning to end, even as I managed to avoid the more obvious attempts at manipulation. It's by no means a "bad" or insulting movie and there's a lot of talent on display.