available from various PrairieCat libraries;
Keanu Reeves (Jjaks) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Sam) are brothers from the most dysfunctional family ever. They fight and cheat and lie and steal - and seem to come by it all naturally, as their mother (played by Tuesday Weld?!) is the ideal role model for such offspring. At her request, Jjaks, fresh out of prison, comes home for Sam's wedding. The bride is Freddie (Cameron Diaz), a foulmouthed tough with no affection for her groom, but plenty for his brother. Freddie and Jjaks run away together (after a memorable 'moment' during the wedding reception). At that point, everything goes a little crazy.
If these characters were played at the level where they exist, Feeling Minnesota would be a docudrama of despair, depravity and bad hygiene. ... But Hollywood cleans them up real nice, and casts them with Reeves and D'Onofrio, and assumes that a world-class beauty like Diaz would consider it a step up to drop Sam for Jjaks, "who likes to spend all of his free time in prison." And you know what? That's exactly how it works. By taking characters from the bottom of the barrel and casting them with beautiful people, Hollywood is able to create that ageless alchemy in which we equate physical beauty with personal worth, and so of course we want Freddie to dump Sam (who looks like an incipient Orson Welles) for Jjaks (who has a nice smile). ... Cameron Diaz is the discovery here. I first became aware of her in The Mask, in which she was a sex siren in a gown that looked spray-painted onto her almost cartoonishly perfect curves. Now, after seeing her in movies like Last Supper and She's the One, and in this lead role in Feeling Minnesota, I realize she has range and comic ability and is not only a sex bomb; she looks so warmly down-to-earth in these other films, indeed, that instead of praising a sex bomb for being able to play real, we should, I suppose, congratulate a real woman on being able to create the siren in The Mask. D'Onofrio is, as always, a substantial screen presence; he seems to block more of the sun than most actors, and has to be dealt with. You can't simply dismiss him with plot details. Reeves is very likable, and this film, coming after the enchanting A Walk in the Clouds, establishes him as one of the most gifted romantic leads of his generation.--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
The cast is sort of brilliant (Vincent D'Onofrio could not be any better), including Dan Aykroyd as the cop, Courtney Love as Rhonda the waitress, and Delroy Lindo as Sam's deceptively laid-back boss. (Interestingly, Lindo was also in Romeo Must Die, reviewed here.) The movie itself is odd as heck, and definitely not for everyone. I'll say one thing for it: they basically got the Minnesota accents right.
Reviewed by: Amy
Age group: Adult
Classification: Entertainment/Fiction
MPAA: Rated R for violence, sexuality and language
Grade: C+
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