White Bird in a Blizzard: DVD Review

White Bird in a Blizzard: DVD Review

Rating: R16
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

It's perhaps fitting that Laura Palmer herself shows near the end of White Bird in a Blizzard, given that the film appears to be trying to channel that surreally off-kilter suburban edge from the Twin Peaks series.

Shailene Woodley is 17 year old Kat, whose mum (Eva Green) disappears without a trace. Her father (SVU's Christopher Meloni) appears distraught but slightly out of sorts at the news - and Kat's burgeoning sexuality and own coming of age is making itself known.

But despite initially not recognising her mum's disappearance, it begins to take its toll on Kat and her life in many unexpected ways...

White Bird in a Blizzard is unsettling in parts, in the ways that it channels dysfunction and domestic suburban life. There's clearly something not right from go to woah in this film, and the script does little to build on that unease, which is perhaps a wise move.

As the sexually precocious and self-assured Kat, Woodley has both the screen presence and projection to carry it off, without putting in a showy performance. It's perhaps a more unnerving film than you'd first expect but the answers don't show until the very very end which is an awkward move as it feels all neatly resolved - it's a film that doesn't demand closure and the very choices it makes to do so are perhaps a cop out.

Eva Green is haunting and as troubling a portrait and product of marriage as you'd ever see, but coupled with Woodley's measured take, White Bird in a Blizzard takes flight with an intriguing flight-path and is worth a lazy afternoon watch.

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