Starring: Dakota Fanning, David Morse, Piper Laurie, Cody HanfordWritten & Directed By: Deborah Kampmeier"Hounddog" had a rough start when it was premiered at Sundance back in 2007. It wasnt received very well by audiences and had some trouble getting distribution. It quickly got labeled as a controversial film with the name of "The Untitled Dakota Fanning Rape Movie." This scene doesn't even particularly stand out. It's hard to say what the movie is about as it is very jumbled and hectic. But in the end, the movie is about the acting, specifically from Dakota Fanning. The most important thing "Hounddog" does is gives Fanning a chance to help transition herself from the overly intelligent and mature adorable young girl to the troubled and disturbed teen, actually hitting more on adult themes than most teenage roles would.
Lewellan, played by Fanning, is a 12-year-old Elvis-obsessed girl growing up in the 1950s American South. She lives with her cold and withdrawn father, played by Morse, and is next door to her overbearing, strict Christian grannie, played by Laurie. When Lewellan has a chance to escape from her troubling home life, she runs around with her best friend and romantic interest, Buddy, played by Hanford. Lewellan is known for her Elvis singing and impersonations, constantly singing his song for others as well as herself. When she hears Elvis is coming to town, Lewellan can't think about anything else but seeing him in concert.
When her dad gets struck by lightening, he goes through quite a drastic change, unable to even remember his name. His mental capacity has decreased, but there seems to be more humanity in him than before. However, his illness leaves Lewellan and her father broke. She has to steal money from her grandma just to get him his medicine. She almost has to give up on seeing Elvis, but it seems Buddy has helped her find a way to get tickets. An older teenage boy promises her tickets in exchange for her performing an Elvis song, but this ends up being a dirty trick that scars her further.
Without the cast we are given here, the film really would have just fallen flat. Dakota Fanning shows great maturity displaying the internal demons of her character. In those selected numbers of scenes where Lewellan is allowed to be happy, Fanning shows great free spirited charisma, making us care for her and letting us have fun with her character.
David Morse was pretty good, but where he could have done better. He was clearly limited by the script. His character goes through a drastic character change, especially on the emotional and humanistic spectrum. The character that he ends up with has been compared to Lennie from "Of Mice and Men." There are striking similarities between these two. This could have really worked as it was a welcomed character change, getting me to care far more about him than I did before. However, there really isn't any transition from heartless to loving. I understand that he had a sudden accident that did this to him, but even so, this is not done very discretely and seems forced. Morse could have elevated his character a bit farther but I can't solely blame him as the writing is the biggest fallback here.
Cody Hanford gave the best performance aside from Fanning, as Buddy. He shows a youthful, caring, and adventurous persona that works off of Fanning's incredibly well. He goes through quite a character change as well and just like the father, his character changes instantaneously and with no warning. The only difference is there is no accident or mental strain inflicted on him, making the lack of reasoning or gradual development stick out all the more. There is some element of darkness in him in the way he turns on Lewellan. This really wasn't shown nearly as much as it should have. Hanford does greatly succeed in making us care for him and making us question him, feeling a similar betrayal that Lewellan likely felt.
Piper Laurie bring out the stern and quite frankly scary grandmother. She becomes a major source of Lewellan's misery and Laurie makes it very easy to feel the hate that we should feel for her. She is a great source of the uncomfortable element in the film. I would argue that some of Laurie's scenes are more disturbing than the rape scene.
Now the rape scene was much more hyped up than it probably should have been. Don't not watch this movie for fear of this scene being too uncomfortable. It is a very quick scene and hardly anything is shown. In terms of rape scenes, its nothing, but I can understand why they went this route with it since the character was a 12-year-old girl.
The grandmother constantly talked about how Lewellan should stay pure and she frowned down upon Buddy anytime he was with Lewellan. It seems like showing repercussions of the rape through the grandmother in response to what had happened to Lewellan would have benefited the film. I hate to even think what these repercussion would be, but it is a direction that I expected the film to go in and could have highlighted the impact and hardships this event added on her life.
Lewellan is a bit more quiet and reserved after the rape, but this element is only barely there. We are never really shown the severity of this event and what it really does to her. Her heartbreak is largely that of her already broken family life, her struggle to take care of her absent-minded father and the betrayal of her friend. The only element that wasn't there before this was her loss of Buddy as a friend. It's unclear why he turned on her but he had already made the conscious choice to do so before the rape occurred. So the rape scene seems to be thrown in there largely as an attention grabber.
"Hounddog" reminds me somewhat of Fanning's other recent film, "The Secret Life of Bees." They both take place in the South, one during the '50s and the other during the '60s. Both films show a poor and tormented childhood and the girl who is trying to escape from it. Music plays a large part in both of these films as well. "The Secret Life of Bees" really is the better film though as it has a much more coherent story and plot, more consistency, and more realistic, fleshed out characters.
One of the biggest problems with "Hounddog" is that it doesn't do a lot to make itself stand out. We are given a number of cliches of the old southern drama. We have the cruel Christian women, the kind black man, and the bad home life that our protagonist struggles to get off of. Of course, there's snakes too. Here the snakes are meant to represent the innocence taken away from Lewellan.
There are some good themes presented in the film and most of it is interesting enough, but everything is presented in such an episodic and sporadic structure. Many things don't seem like they actually connect to what has come before it. The characters actually do make it very strong and much easier to care about the film, but many also hold it back and take away the element of realism since many seem to have split personalities. The story isn't put together very well and many things are not dealt with and examined enough, making the film feel more empty than it should.
Writer and director Deborah Kampmeier worked on the script for 10 years and even once the film was made, changes were made to it in response to poor reception. It is surprising that in all this time, these lacking elements weren't given a bit more depth. "Hounddog" is a flawed film and really doesn't stand out among other southern dramas but as you're watching it, it is easy enough to get lost in the film from the care that most of the performances and the characters they are portraying inject in the audience.
Kelsey Zukowski
Hounddog
Starring: Dakota Fanning, David Morse, Piper Laurie, Cody HanfordWritten & Directed By: Deborah Kampmeier"Hounddog" had a rough start when it was premiered at Sundance back in 2007. It wasnt received very well by audiences and had some trouble getting distribution. It quickly got labeled as a controversial film with the name of "The Untitled Dakota Fanning Rape Movie." This scene doesn't even particularly stand out. It's hard to say what the movie is about as it is very jumbled and hectic. But in the end, the movie is about the acting, specifically from Dakota Fanning. The most important thing "Hounddog" does is gives Fanning a chance to help transition herself from the overly intelligent and mature adorable young girl to the troubled and disturbed teen, actually hitting more on adult themes than most teenage roles would.
Lewellan, played by Fanning, is a 12-year-old Elvis-obsessed girl growing up in the 1950s American South. She lives with her cold and withdrawn father, played by Morse, and is next door to her overbearing, strict Christian grannie, played by Laurie. When Lewellan has a chance to escape from her troubling home life, she runs around with her best friend and romantic interest, Buddy, played by Hanford. Lewellan is known for her Elvis singing and impersonations, constantly singing his song for others as well as herself. When she hears Elvis is coming to town, Lewellan can't think about anything else but seeing him in concert.
When her dad gets struck by lightening, he goes through quite a drastic change, unable to even remember his name. His mental capacity has decreased, but there seems to be more humanity in him than before. However, his illness leaves Lewellan and her father broke. She has to steal money from her grandma just to get him his medicine. She almost has to give up on seeing Elvis, but it seems Buddy has helped her find a way to get tickets. An older teenage boy promises her tickets in exchange for her performing an Elvis song, but this ends up being a dirty trick that scars her further.
Without the cast we are given here, the film really would have just fallen flat. Dakota Fanning shows great maturity displaying the internal demons of her character. In those selected numbers of scenes where Lewellan is allowed to be happy, Fanning shows great free spirited charisma, making us care for her and letting us have fun with her character.
David Morse was pretty good, but where he could have done better. He was clearly limited by the script. His character goes through a drastic character change, especially on the emotional and humanistic spectrum. The character that he ends up with has been compared to Lennie from "Of Mice and Men." There are striking similarities between these two. This could have really worked as it was a welcomed character change, getting me to care far more about him than I did before. However, there really isn't any transition from heartless to loving. I understand that he had a sudden accident that did this to him, but even so, this is not done very discretely and seems forced. Morse could have elevated his character a bit farther but I can't solely blame him as the writing is the biggest fallback here.
Cody Hanford gave the best performance aside from Fanning, as Buddy. He shows a youthful, caring, and adventurous persona that works off of Fanning's incredibly well. He goes through quite a character change as well and just like the father, his character changes instantaneously and with no warning. The only difference is there is no accident or mental strain inflicted on him, making the lack of reasoning or gradual development stick out all the more. There is some element of darkness in him in the way he turns on Lewellan. This really wasn't shown nearly as much as it should have. Hanford does greatly succeed in making us care for him and making us question him, feeling a similar betrayal that Lewellan likely felt.
Piper Laurie bring out the stern and quite frankly scary grandmother. She becomes a major source of Lewellan's misery and Laurie makes it very easy to feel the hate that we should feel for her. She is a great source of the uncomfortable element in the film. I would argue that some of Laurie's scenes are more disturbing than the rape scene.
Now the rape scene was much more hyped up than it probably should have been. Don't not watch this movie for fear of this scene being too uncomfortable. It is a very quick scene and hardly anything is shown. In terms of rape scenes, its nothing, but I can understand why they went this route with it since the character was a 12-year-old girl.
The grandmother constantly talked about how Lewellan should stay pure and she frowned down upon Buddy anytime he was with Lewellan. It seems like showing repercussions of the rape through the grandmother in response to what had happened to Lewellan would have benefited the film. I hate to even think what these repercussion would be, but it is a direction that I expected the film to go in and could have highlighted the impact and hardships this event added on her life.
Lewellan is a bit more quiet and reserved after the rape, but this element is only barely there. We are never really shown the severity of this event and what it really does to her. Her heartbreak is largely that of her already broken family life, her struggle to take care of her absent-minded father and the betrayal of her friend. The only element that wasn't there before this was her loss of Buddy as a friend. It's unclear why he turned on her but he had already made the conscious choice to do so before the rape occurred. So the rape scene seems to be thrown in there largely as an attention grabber.
"Hounddog" reminds me somewhat of Fanning's other recent film, "The Secret Life of Bees." They both take place in the South, one during the '50s and the other during the '60s. Both films show a poor and tormented childhood and the girl who is trying to escape from it. Music plays a large part in both of these films as well. "The Secret Life of Bees" really is the better film though as it has a much more coherent story and plot, more consistency, and more realistic, fleshed out characters.
One of the biggest problems with "Hounddog" is that it doesn't do a lot to make itself stand out. We are given a number of cliches of the old southern drama. We have the cruel Christian women, the kind black man, and the bad home life that our protagonist struggles to get off of. Of course, there's snakes too. Here the snakes are meant to represent the innocence taken away from Lewellan.
There are some good themes presented in the film and most of it is interesting enough, but everything is presented in such an episodic and sporadic structure. Many things don't seem like they actually connect to what has come before it. The characters actually do make it very strong and much easier to care about the film, but many also hold it back and take away the element of realism since many seem to have split personalities. The story isn't put together very well and many things are not dealt with and examined enough, making the film feel more empty than it should.
Writer and director Deborah Kampmeier worked on the script for 10 years and even once the film was made, changes were made to it in response to poor reception. It is surprising that in all this time, these lacking elements weren't given a bit more depth. "Hounddog" is a flawed film and really doesn't stand out among other southern dramas but as you're watching it, it is easy enough to get lost in the film from the care that most of the performances and the characters they are portraying inject in the audience.
