White Bird in a Blizzard

Last updated

White Bird in a Blizzard
WBIB poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Gregg Araki
Screenplay byGregg Araki
Based onWhite Bird in a Blizzard
by Laura Kasischke
Produced by
  • Gregg Araki
  • Pascal Caucheteux
  • Sebastien Lemercier
Starring
CinematographySandra Valde-Hansen
Edited byGregg Araki
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • January 20, 2014 (2014-01-20)(Sundance)
  • October 24, 2014 (2014-10-24)
Running time
91 minutes [1]
CountriesFrance
United States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$378,300 [2] [3]

White Bird in a Blizzard is a 2014 art drama thriller film co-produced, written, directed and edited by Gregg Araki and starring Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, and Angela Bassett. Based on the novel of the same name by Laura Kasischke, the film follows several years in the life of teenager Katrina "Kat" Connors (Woodley), beginning on the day her mother, Eve (Green), disappeared and the effect this event has on her and the people of her life, frequently alternating between the present time and flashbacks. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2014 before being given a limited theatrical release on October 24, 2014. [4]

Contents

Plot

In 1988, when Katrina "Kat" Connors was 17, her beautiful but mercurial mother, Eve, disappeared without a trace. The story weaves back-and-forth with flashbacks of Eve's past life and the present day.

In the flashbacks, Eve was a wild girl who gradually changed into a domesticated housewife after marrying Brock, an ordinary man who leads an uneventful life. While Kat explores her blossoming sexuality with her handsome but dim-witted neighbor and schoolmate, Phil, Eve struggles to deal with aging and quenching her youthful wildness. She tries to be sexy when Brock is away, even luring Phil's attention. After Eve disappears, Kat deals with her abandonment without much issue, occasionally releasing her own wild side, seducing the detective investigating her mother's disappearance. The film then jumps forward three years to the spring of 1991. On a break from college, Kat returns home and seems unfazed to learn that her father is in a relationship with a co-worker.

The detective Kat has been having an affair with informs her that Brock might have killed Eve after catching her cheating. Kat dismisses this theory, just as she did three years previously. When she mentions it to her friends Beth and Mickey, they tell her they suggested this same theory to her and she dismissed them as well. Kat suspects Phil of having slept with Eve and confronts him the night before she is to return to college, but Phil angrily denies it and tells her that her father knows where her mother is.

Kat has recurring dreams of her mother stranded in the snow, and starts to unpack Brock's locked basement freezer but is interrupted when he walks in on her. She asks him if he does in fact know where she is, but he denies having any knowledge of her whereabouts. Believing her father, Kat bids him goodbye and tearfully boards her flight, returning to college. It is revealed that he went out to a bar shortly afterward and drunkenly admitted to murdering Eve and that he had moved Eve's body from the freezer to a nearby hill the night before Kat unpacked it. He is arrested and hangs himself with a sheet in his jail cell. When Eve's body is found, it is revealed that the body had been frozen for so long that after it was buried, that it had melted away.

The film ends with a flashback of Eve's death. Returning home from shopping the afternoon of her disappearance, Eve found Brock and Phil in bed together. Phil dashed off and Eve began laughing hysterically at Brock, incredulous. A humiliated Brock repeatedly begged her to stop, but Eve continued laughing until he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her to death.

Cast

Reception

Shailene Woodley and Shiloh Fernandez in Paris at the film's French premiere. White Bird 2014.jpg
Shailene Woodley and Shiloh Fernandez in Paris at the film's French premiere.

Box office

The film opened in the United States in a limited release on October 24, 2014 in 4 theaters and grossed $6,302 with an average of $1,576 per theater and ranking #80 at the box office. After 7 weeks in theaters the film earned $33,821 domestically and $344,479 internationally for a total of $378,300. [2] [3]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, the film has a score of 55% based on 92 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The critical consensus states: "Part suburban thriller, part sexual awakening drama – and fully convincing as neither – White Bird in a Blizzard rests a little too heavily on Shailene Woodley's typically superlative work." [5] The film also has a score of 51 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [6]

Pop Insomniacs said, "We've seen versions of this story several times, but never quite mangled together like this before, which is precisely why I was so captivated, uncomfortable and surprised by this movie". [7] Kansas City Star reporter Jocelyn Noveck said, "It all comes down to a doozy of a plot twist, and it's enjoyably shocking. But at the end you're still left shaking your head, feeling lost, wishing there was something tangible to hold on to — perhaps a bit like being trapped in a snow globe... Two stars out of four". [8]

Stereogum ranked the film's 80s pop- and shoegaze-heavy soundtrack as the 16th best soundtrack of 2014. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shailene Woodley</span> American actress (born 1991)

Shailene Diann Woodley is an American actress. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013). She then starred in the films The Descendants (2011) and The Spectacular Now (2013), receiving a nomination for her first Golden Globe Award for the former.

<i>Abandon</i> (film) 2002 American film

Abandon is a 2002 American psychological thriller drama film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan in his directorial debut. It stars Katie Holmes as a college student whose boyfriend disappeared two years previously. Despite being set at an American university, much of the movie was filmed in Canada at McGill University's McConnell Hall. It is based on the book Adams Fall by Sean Desmond. The book was re-titled Abandon for the movie tie-in paperback printing. The film co-stars Zooey Deschanel, Gabrielle Union and Melanie Lynskey, with Benjamin Bratt playing the detective investigating the boyfriend's disappearance. It received generally negative reviews.

<i>Felicity: An American Girl Adventure</i> 2005 television film by Nadia Tass

Felicity: An American Girl Adventure is the second in the series of American Girl film series. It is a made-for-television drama film that is based on the American Girl children's books written by Valerie Tripp, and premiered on The WB on November 29, 2005. The teleplay was written by Anna Sandor.

<i>Good Hair</i> 2009 American comedy documentary film by Jeff Stilson

Good Hair is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Jeff Stilson and produced by Chris Rock Productions and HBO Films, starring and narrated by comedian Chris Rock. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2009, Good Hair had a limited release to theaters in the United States by Roadside Attractions on October 9, 2009, and opened across the country on October 23.

<i>Twelve</i> (2010 film) 2010 film

Twelve is a 2010 teen crime drama film directed by Joel Schumacher from a screenplay by Jordan Melamed, based on Nick McDonell's 2002 novel of the same name. The film follows a young drug dealer whose luxurious lifestyle falls apart after his cousin is murdered and his best friend is arrested for the crime. It stars Chace Crawford, Rory Culkin, Curtis Jackson, Emily Meade, and Emma Roberts.

<i>Compliance</i> (film) 2012 American film

Compliance is a 2012 American thriller film written and directed by Craig Zobel and starring Ann Dowd, Dreama Walker, Pat Healy, and Bill Camp. The plot of the movie is closely based upon an actual strip search phone call scam that took place in Mount Washington, Kentucky in 2004, although the names of the real-life figures were changed. In both the film and the real-life incident, a caller posing as a police officer convinced a restaurant manager and others to carry out unlawful and intrusive procedures on an innocent employee.

<i>Divergent</i> (film) 2014 film by Neil Burger

Divergent is a 2014 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Neil Burger, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Veronica Roth. The film is the first installment in The Divergent Series and was produced by Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, and Pouya Shahbazian, with a screenplay by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor. It stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, and Kate Winslet. The story takes place in a dystopian and post-apocalyptic Chicago where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. Beatrice Prior is warned that she is Divergent and thus will never fit into any one of the factions. Soon, she learns that a sinister plot is brewing in the seemingly perfect society.

<i>The Spectacular Now</i> 2013 film directed by James Ponsoldt

The Spectacular Now is a 2013 American coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by James Ponsoldt, from a screenplay written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Tim Tharp. It stars Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley as high-schoolers Sutter and Aimee, whose unexpected encounter leads to a romance blossoming between the two. Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Bob Odenkirk, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kyle Chandler are featured in supporting roles.

<i>The Fault in Our Stars</i> (film) 2014 romantic drama film

The Fault in Our Stars is a 2014 American coming-of-age romance film directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by John Green. The film stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, with Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Nat Wolff, and Willem Dafoe in supporting roles. The story centers on a sixteen-year-old cancer patient, played by Woodley, forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she meets and subsequently falls in love with another cancer patient, played by Elgort.

<i>Lila & Eve</i> 2015 American film

Lila & Eve is a 2015 American crime drama film directed by Charles Stone III and written by Patrick Gilfillan. The film stars Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez. It premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and was released in North America on July 17, 2015, in a limited release and through video on demand by Samuel Goldwyn Films. This marks the second time Davis and Lopez acted in a film together, the first being the Steven Soderbergh film Out of Sight in 1998.

<i>The Divergent Series: Allegiant</i> 2016 film by Robert Schwentke

The Divergent Series: Allegiant is a 2016 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Robert Schwentke with a screenplay by Bill Collage, Adam Cooper, and Noah Oppenheim, and the third and final film in The Divergent Series. It was set to be the first of two cinematic parts based on the 2013 novel Allegiant of the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth.

The Divergent Series is an American dystopian science fiction action film series based on the Divergent novels by the American author Veronica Roth. Distributed by Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate Films, the series is set in a dystopian society: Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant. They have been produced by Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shabazian, and Douglas Wick.

<i>The Divergent Series: Insurgent</i> 2015 film by Robert Schwentke

The Divergent Series: Insurgent is a 2015 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Robert Schwentke, based on the 2012 novel Insurgent, the second book in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. It is the sequel to the 2014 film Divergent and the second installment in The Divergent Series, produced by Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shabazian and Douglas Wick, with a screenplay by Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback. Schwentke took over from Neil Burger as director, with Burger serving as the executive producer of the film. Along with the first film's returning cast, led by Shailene Woodley and Theo James, the sequel features supporting actors Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Suki Waterhouse, Rosa Salazar, Daniel Dae Kim, Jonny Weston, Emjay Anthony, and Keiynan Lonsdale.

<i>Captive</i> (2015 film) 2015 American film

Captive is a 2015 American crime-drama thriller film directed by Jerry Jameson and written by Brian Bird and Reinhard Denke, based on the non-fiction book Unlikely Angel by Ashley Smith.

<i>Bound to Vengeance</i> 2015 American film

Bound to Vengeance is a 2015 American horror-thriller film about a woman who escapes her confinement in a basement by a sexual predator. The film had its world premiere on January 23, 2015 at the Sundance Film Festival.

<i>XX</i> (film) 2017 horror anthology film

XX is a 2017 American horror anthology film directed by Jovanka Vuckovic, Annie Clark, Roxanne Benjamin, and Karyn Kusama. It stars Natalie Brown, Melanie Lynskey, Breeda Wool, and Christina Kirk. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017, and was released in the United States in select theaters and through video on demand on February 17, 2017, by Magnet Releasing.

<i>Adrift</i> (2018 film) 2018 film by Baltasar Kormákur

Adrift is a 2018 survival drama film produced and directed by Baltasar Kormákur and written by David Branson Smith, Aaron Kandell, and Jordan Kandell. The film is based on the 2002 book Red Sky in Mourning by Tami Oldham Ashcraft, a true story set during the events of Hurricane Raymond in 1983. The film stars Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin as a couple who are adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after a hurricane, and must find their way to Hawaii with a damaged boat and no radio.

<i>Endings, Beginnings</i> 2019 romantic drama film by Drake Doremus

Endings, Beginnings is a 2019 romantic drama film, directed by Drake Doremus, from a screenplay he wrote alongside Jardine Libaire. The film is semi-improvised and loosely based on the screenplay. It stars Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Stan and Matthew Gray Gubler.

<i>The Mauritanian</i> 2021 legal drama film directed by Kevin Macdonald

The Mauritanian is a 2021 legal drama film based on the memoir of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was held from 2002 to 2016 without charge in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison. The film was directed by Kevin Macdonald based on a screenplay written by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, adapted from Slahi's 2015 memoir Guantánamo Diary. It stars Tahar Rahim as Slahi, and also features Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Zachary Levi in supporting roles.

<i>To Catch a Killer</i> (2023 film) American film by Damián Szifron

To Catch a Killer is a 2023 American crime thriller film directed by Damián Szifron and written by Szifron and Jonathan Wakeham. It stars Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo and Ralph Ineson. In the film, a talented but troubled young Baltimore cop is recruited by the FBI to help profile and track down a murderer. The film marks Szifron's English-language debut.

References

  1. ↑ "WHITE BIRD IN A BLIZZARD (15)". British Board of Film Classification . November 28, 2014. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
  2. 1 2 "White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) - Box Office Mojo" . Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo" . Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Sundance Institute Announces Films In Premieres And Documentary Premieres For 2014 Sundance Film Festival". Sundance Film Festival. December 9, 2013. Archived from the original on October 4, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  5. ↑ "White Bird in a Blizzard". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved September 30, 2022.
  6. ↑ "White Bird in a Blizzard Reviews - Metacritic". Metacritic . Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  7. ↑ "'White Bird in a Blizzard' and Shailene Woodley Subvert Expectations". Pop Insomniacs. September 22, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Review: Shailene Woodley gets lost in a blizzard". Archived from the original on October 23, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ "The 20 Best Soundtrack Moments Of 2014". Stereogum. December 31, 2014. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.