Screenwriter Calder Willingham adapted his own book about a wayward young woman in 1930s Georgia who comes to stay with a rural family, quickly setting her lustful sights on the family patriarch. Director Martha Coolidge isn't especially graceful here, moving the film along in fits and starts, and when it becomes apparent that there isn't much to the story beyond the central situation, it just becomes a chore. The writing is decidedly bland, opening with a woeful prologue, and one never gets a sense of character development or transition. Real-life mother and daughter Diane Ladd and Laura Dern each earned Oscar nominations for their work (an Academy first), but young Lukas Haas (standing in, perhaps, for Willingham) gives the most interesting performance as the teenager with a crush on his family's flirtatious houseguest. ** from ****
Review of Rambling Rose
