A father attempts to drive his estranged daughter to a rehab clinic
following a near fatal overdose.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Emma Westenberg
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Clara McGregor, Kim Zimmer, Devyn McDowell, Sasha Alexander, Jake Weary, Vera
Bulder
Ewan McGregor follows Ryan O'Neal's lead in appearing alongside
his real life daughter, Clara McGregor, in a road movie.
Bleeding Love sees the McGregors play an estranged father
and daughter whose relationship has been blighted by their respective
addiction issues. In real life Ewan and Clara have both had similar
problems with substance abuse, and Ewan's divorce from Clara's mother
put a strain on their relationship for a period of their lives. I'm not
sure if this sort of method casting adds an extra layer of
verisimilitude to director Emma Westenberg's film or acts as a
hindrance, but it's certainly the most intriguing aspect of
Bleeding Love.
Having walked out on his family due to his alcoholism several years
ago, Ewan's character, who is listed simply as "Father" (this growing
trend of refusing to name characters is highly annoying for those of us
who write about movies, so I'm just going to refer to the leads as Ewan
and Clara), re-enters his 20-year-old daughter's life when she overdoses
in the early morning. Ewan plans to drive Clara from San Diego to a
rehab facility in New Mexico, but knowing she would never agree to such
a thing, he feeds her a fake story about taking her to stay with a
painter friend, where she might re-establish her childhood love of
art.
As far as American road movies go, the trip undertaken by the
protagonists here is relatively short, requiring only one overnight stay
in the customary motel in the middle of nowhere. The setting of the
American SouthWest, with its open expanses and never-ending roads
speckled with armadillo corpses, gives the impression of a lengthier
journey and certainly one more scenic than if the McGregors were driving
from Bristol to Aberdeen. Unfortunately for Bleeding Love, this iconic setting only serves to draw comparisons with the great
American road movies of the past, and Westerberg's film never does
enough to earn a place in this particular canon.
The roads of America have long proven a draw for filmmakers because
putting two people in a car and having them stop at a new motel each
night provides the perfect opportunity for character development, along
with an ever-changing backdrop that keeps things visually interesting.
The brevity of the journey here means the McGregors' respective arcs
develop too quickly. The pouty Clara we meet in the opening scene,
attempting to flee into the desert while her dad thinks she's emptying
her bladder on the side of the road, is all too happily joining her
father in a singalong to the Leona Lewis song that gives the film its
title a mere handful of scenes later. The reconciliation between this
estranged pair simply happens far too rapidly to be believable.
There's a lot of talk from Clara about how her father is a hypocrite
for his condemnation of her lifestyle, given his own past. This is
visually signified by some trite childhood flashbacks that see
Westerberg use that now clichéd floaty camera style that directors
employ when they want to let you know just how much they're inspired by
Terrence Malick. Had Bleeding Love actually been made by
Malick it would likely be a lot more ambiguous, allowing the audience to
fill in the blanks regarding Ewan and Clara's past. In Westerberg's
hands too much backstory is revealed through confrontational dialogue,
and there are too few moments in which the camera lingers on Ewan and
Clara's faces to allow us to process what they're feeling rather than
having them directly speak their emotions.
All that said, Bleeding Love is an easy watch. Ewan
McGregor is one of the most affable performers working today, and his
daughter seems to have inherited his natural charisma. The jury's still
out on whether she's a talented actress or whether her performance
benefits from her offscreen relationship with her co-star, but Clara
certainly does enough here to warrant further roles. Even if the
fictional Ewan and Clara never quite hit enough bumps in the narrative
road the film sets them off upon, you can feel how much they're enjoying
working together. That's as much of a burden as an asset though, as had
the two actors not shared such close ties they may have better embraced
the sort of friction that Bleeding Love requires to sell
its story in more convincing fashion.
