Orizzonti review - JACKIE AND RYAN by Ami Canaan Mann

Two lonely hearts are brought together through the power of love and folk music. The result is unfortunately sloppy in Jackie and Ryan by Ami Canaan Mann, presented in the Orizzonti section of the 71st Venice Film Festival.

He is Ryan (Ben Barnes), a lonely travelling musician with a guitar sack on his back. She is Jackie (Katherine Heigl), a soon to be divorced mother who moves back to Ogden with her daughter. The basic set up is that of a chance meeting and what follows is the usually dishonest love story between two lonely individual. A further catch is provided by the fact that she was once a successful pop star while he is one his way to becoming one. The film leaves plenty of room for a viewer to feel cynical, as most romance films of the kind do. Yet, there is some dignity in the fact that Ami Canaan Mann, the daughter of celebrated director Michael Mann, tells her tale in a slower than usual way, unhurried and with a little more humanity than one would expect.

Nevertheless, it's hard to understate how obvious the plot developments are. Even if one was to point out its nostalgic charm and references to classic American romance movies, it would be yankee doodle dandy ones where all that is missing is a religious undertone. The redeeming features, apart from the folk ad country music which remains beautiful, are to be found in its modern elements, such as the sweet texts the two titular characters send each other as they momentarily split up and having decided to stay close whilst far away in a long distance relationship sort of situation - another sign of our travelling generation.

Still, for every good thing, there are many other bad elements. Aside from the cliched afore mentioned plot developments, the acting is hardly up to scratch. There is mention that Ben Barnes did not play the guitar before he played the role, which is somewhat impressive but an integral part of character research. Aside from that, the performances by the cast in general are quite carboard whilst admittedly soft spoken. Katherine Heigl is particularly awkward in the role of Jackie, and a cringing scene where she takes the stage of a local bar to do a number with her daughter could have been sweet but ends up being one of the worst playback sequences in the history of recent cinema. It doesn't help either that the much more impressive Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coen brothers is still fresh in our minds. While Mann's film takes place against a rural background, a lot of the elements are similar yet Jackie and Ryan is for a more restricted, mature and female target audience.

It is refreshing to see that in the end, Jackie and Ryan does not turn into an even sloppier type of melodrama. Thankfully, the emotions are tastefully underplayed, and that makes the experience a little less cringe worthy. But when there is nothing particularly original to say, there is still nothing particulularly original left to say. Ami Canaan Mann certainly shows potential as a filmmaker, but is hardly making the list of top players in today's indie American cinema scene with the likes of Josephine Decker, Nathan Silver, Sara Colangelo and Leah Meyerhoff daring to come up with original concepts or play a lot more creatively with familiar ones. There certainly are better ways to take simple and mature love stories to the screen.