Review: American Woman

An irresponsible, hard-living single mum (Sienna Miller, never better) slowly gets her shit together despite relationship issues and a missing teenage daughter (Sky Ferreira) whose own young child Miller is now responsible for in her absence. Pat Healy plays an abusive dick, Aaron Paul plays a nice but flawed interested party, whilst Amy Madigan (surprisingly poor), Christina Hendricks (surprisingly solid), and Will Sasso play Miller’s mother, sister, and brother-in-law respectively.

 

An outstanding Sienna Miller performance is the big plus in this otherwise unsatisfying, clichéd 2019 film from director Jake Scott (son of Ridley, he shot the ‘Disarm’ music video for Smashing Pumpkins). Scripted by Brad Ingelsby (“Out of the Furnace”, “Run All Night”) the film is ultimately about grief and loss, but the way the film plays at times, you’d swear that it was a mystery that will have a clear resolution. It’s not just that I expected something different to what I got, as that blame would fall on me the viewer. Director Scott set me up for that wrong impression by framing a certain actor a certain way that combined with a certain actor’s performance cast them in a suspicious light and drew so much attention to them that I felt I was watching a mystery unfolding. Nope. That’s not the story being told here, it’s just poor filmmaking on Scott’s part in leading you to suspect it.

 

The story that is being told here is less interesting to me than a murder-mystery would’ve been. If you’ve seen “Three Billboards” you’ve seen the same basic idea done far better there. The douchebag boyfriend unconvincingly played by Pat Healy is your standard working class abusive male cliché you’ve seen a hundred times in a hundred movies, many better. I also didn’t like the way the film dealt with the progression of time, it’s quite disorienting at times. The choppy narrative doesn’t quite give us enough sense of how Sienna Miller’s character seems to move up in the world as she does by the end of the film. Pieces seem missing.

 

I’m sure some people will like this character study, particularly women. I found it a disorienting and unsatisfying experience with moments of interest here and there. I liked parts of it but not enough parts and not the whole. Sienna Miller has never been better. She’s spot-on from moment one.

 

Rating: C+

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