Magnolia Pictures | 2009 | Rated R | 106 minutes

THE BURNING PLAIN is what on paper would appear to be a rich mine for Oscar® gold. There is a promising premise, that follows multi-tiered storylines including that of Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a restaurant manager who is running from her past and who keeps her many dark secrets buried deep within her, never allowing herself to really get close to anyone, but instead filling her life with meaningless, and oftentimes, nameless relationships. There’s also the story of Gina (Kim Basinger), a mom trying to raise her family while at the same time keeping her affair with another man secret. Finally there is the story of Gina’s daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), a deeply troubled teenage girl who is trying to hide her relationship with a boy that no one approves of. With three very strong storylines, focused solely on developing strong characters, and with a principal cast that includes two Academy Award® winners, THE BURNING PLAIN has all of the recipes to be an emotionally powerful and Oscar worthy film. It is not.

Where then does THE BURNING PLAIN go so incredibly wrong? To begin with, the performances are all stellar. Charlize Theron (MONSTER) as always creates a richly developed character that at the same instant can be trying to project confidence while an emotional turmoil emanates from just beneath the surface. She is completely lost within her role and is able to convey the tension her character carries with her along with the hopelessness she feels by the mannerisms that she adopts for Sylvia. Even in her opening scene where she gets out of bed with yet another guy and walks to the open window naked, not caring who may be looking from the street below, there is nothing beautiful about her, but rather just a complete feeling of despair that permeates from her character. Theron does a superb job developing Sylvia, and her performance is on the same level of technical acting proficiency as her past dramatic roles. Likewise, Kim Basinger (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL) builds another strong character and completely embodies her role, though albeit, she is not given the same presence on the screen as is Theron. A scene where she tries to explain to her lover why she does not want him to remove her shirt though beautifully showcases her talents as an actress and becomes one of the strongest moments in the film.

Playing the teenage daughter Mariana, Jennifer Lawrence (“The Bill Engvall Show”) shows great promise and is able to build a character with a similar level of depth and range as those created by Theron and Basinger. Her scenes match the tonal characteristics of the film, with a constructed indifferent exterior hiding the tumultuous undercurrents of emotion existing beneath the surface of her guise. The audience easily relates to her and quickly is able to empathize with her character while wanting to learn more about her. This is an actress that audiences should keep their eyes on, for she has an incredible career ahead of her.

With amazing performances and a solid premise, the question becomes again, where does THE BURNING PLAIN go so incredibly wrong? The answer centers solely on writer and director Guillermo Arriaga (21 GRAMS) and editor Craig Wood (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise). Arriaga, for a completely misguided reason, has decided to present THE BURNING PLAIN in a disjointed timeline style, seemingly in an effort to build a mystery around the characters. Thus the film begins with the turning point at the end of Act Two and then begins to jump randomly through time in a succession of indecipherable cuts, all edited together without any transitions whatsoever. One scene will just be jump cut with the next in such a jarring manner that it becomes more than distracting for the audience. This creates such an amazingly chaotic pacing for the film, dividing it into seemingly random and not interconnected scenes, that the audience cannot really become as invested in the story had they been allowed to see it unfold in a linear manner. This also has the incredibly unfortunate side effect of diminishing the power of the cast’s performances since no real momentum can ever really be developed.

No real mystery is ever built, and audiences will figure out the plot pretty quickly, so it appears that Arriaga and Wood chose this approach to simply appear to be artistic. With the amount of shots dedicated in the film to birds flying, it becomes clear that a forced artistic feel, even if completely artificial and contrived, won out over actual substance. Yes, the audience understands that the birds serve as a metaphor for the main characters. It does not need to be shown over and over again.

Unfortunately, THE BURNING PLAIN becomes a prime example of how trying to create art only for art’s sake, and without any reverence for the substance behind it, in the end makes that art transparent and without meaning. THE BURNING PLAIN had the potential to be an incredible film, but trying to force a filmmaker’s artistic vision on it at any cost, ultimately was the film’s downfall.

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