User Reviews

This film is essentially character-driven and features excellent performances throughout, particularly the four principals-Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Robert Duvall and Lukas Haas. Ladd and Dern mother and daughter in real life) give especially fine performances and deservedly received nominatins for the Academy Awards In the Actress and Supporting Actress categories. The film has a good script and is well done technically. But it is first and foremost an actor's movie and the acting carries the movie along. Well worth your time. Recommended.

Which is a shame considering there was so much to like. Laura Dern's performance is astonishing as the Rose of the title who has a shady past and comes to live with a family headed up by Robert Duvall and Diane Lane (her real life mother) who gives a wonderful performance also.

The story is a cobweb, if story it is, I haven't read the novel,and the plot is character driven all the way.

The sexual content is handled sensitively and the fact that Rose is a 'nymphomaniac' of the era - i.e. she loves sex - is understood and tolerated by the family.

The eldest child, Buddy, is played by Lukas Haas who has many good performances to his credit - and has never turned down a movie role since he was five - who has an evil streak according to his mother but keeps certain secrets about Rose along with his father who also has secrets.

An amazingly tolerant and lovable family headed by a father with integrity - which was a bit of a stumble for me as Robert Duvall's incessant smirking does not translate as such to me. I find it irksome - and confusing. I would have preferred a different actor in that part a la Leslie Howard from the forties.

The sepia cinematography was breathtaking and the street scenes amazing as were the two actors who played the younger children.

The wraparound of the story didn't work at all. Rose deserved more that a verbal dismissal at the end. And the mother vanished inexplicably. Now there was a character. Too bad the viewer wasn't respected a little more.

6 out of 10 for all that.

Buddy recalls the Great Depression when Rose (Laura Dern) came to work for his family. She escaped prostitution in Birmingham to be the domestic servant. Kindly mother Hillyer (Diane Ladd) is partly deaf and was orphaned young. Rose flirts with father Hillyer (Robert Duvall) but he rebuffs her. Young Buddy (Lukas Haas) has a sexual encounter with Rose. She is desperate to stay and convinces him to keep it a secret. She continues to be flirtatious with the town's men. Father wants to send Rose away while mother argues to keep her.

This is a nostalgic jazzy rambling reminiscence of a compelling character. My only problem is that this movie takes a light tone making this almost a fable. Despite the childhood point of view, it needs to go for a darker mood to fit this sexualized tragedy. Director Martha Coolidge is caught between making a kid's coming of age journey and a young woman's walk on a dangerous tight rope. The light airy mood keeps the darker material at a distance.

I got a chance to see this film accidentally while glancing through the channels on my TV. I was instantly hooked and watched the whole film. This film is about a young, restless and free-spirited orphan girl, who is in search of affection. She's also sexually overactive, well that's what the people around her in the 30s feel. She's sheltered by a family who are just like an ordinary family down the road, but when she needs them stand up for her, never caring about the so called caretakers of morals and virtues. A very intersting study if deep rooted charcters, played equally well by the actors. 2 characters stand apart in the film, one of the girl Rose played brilliantly by Laura Dern, and of the mother, played by Laura's real mom, Diane Ladd. Robert Duvall is very believable as the head of the family in the southern in the 1930s. I liked the gentle pace of the movie, and its buildup towards the end, where Diane garners herself for a confrontation with the self proclaimed keepers of the virtues, including her own husband. I like the way their Diane's and Robert's characters undergo transformations, small ones but enough to keep the audience attached to the film at an emotional level. Even days after watching the movie, you'd have the images of the cheerful, sometimes confused, lively and lovely Rose, flashing in front of your eyes. And that's makes the use of a narrative, which some people didn't like about this movie, so appropriate. If I had known someone like Rose in my lifetime, I would definately told this story to everybody I knew, many times over.

If you grew up Southern you always have a thing about Hollywood actors trying to put on a Southern accent. I cringe when I hear Paul Newman, his wife Joan Woodward or Elizabeth Taylor trying to be "Southern." I liked "Rambling Rose" because, for once, the actors nailed it. Only to be expected, I guess, since Diane Ladd is from Mississippi and Laura Dern is her daughter. (So how to explain Robert Duvall, who grew up in San Diego? Well, he's just one helluva an actor.) Aside from the accents, the acting was outstanding.

Also I thought the soft summery lighting was perfect, unlike some period movies that seem done in comic book colors. I wonder where the location scenes were shot--anybody know?

The story itself wasn't great, but was above average, IMHO.

An ingénue nymphomaniac's turbulent life rooted in the 1930s depression period of southern USA, served as a housemaid in a hotel owner's home, our heroine Rose, an uncultured but stalwart gal whose miserable past is the hidden wound cuts her deep and being unaware of her sex-addicted disposition, her path of looking for Mr. Right is rather bumpy and poignant.

The film is narrated by Buddy, the eldest son of the hotel owner, Rose is his first love and always occupies a special place in his heart. Although Rose is the potent pillar of the film, female director Martha Coolidge has steadily integrates a handful of equally vivid characters (young Buddy, his Daddy and Mother) into a moderate template of chanelling and rescuing Rose from her self-destructive hazard, despite of wanting any laudable gambits in highlighting the narrative skills and the plot is always stuck into a hoary frivolousness, the complete work is at best satisfactory.

The film is noteworthy by setting a record in the history of the academy by virtue of a real mother-daughter pair garners two Oscar nominations in the same film, Dern and Ladd (a second collaboration in a film after Lynch's WILD AT HEART 1990, 7/10) both showcase their stunning acting bent. Dern has nailed a quite innately delicate role since Rose is the damaged goods by nature, but her pure kindness and innocence hasn't been impaired and her female vulnerability is the real gem under the circumstance, even if she would mature gracefully later and give a more challenging and nail-biting performance in Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (2006, 7/10), this film is among the crests of her filmography nonetheless. Ladd, after the pompous and lavish turn in WILD AT HEART, unexpectedly chooses a more positive and orthodox good-lady embodiment, her award-worthy moment confidently present itself in the latter part of the film, and single- handedly salvaging Rose from the misogyny from seedy male-predominance. But Duvall is also glittering in his category-fraud (I put him in leading) portrait of a man who is much wiser than he initially appears, and a juvenile Lukas Haas, almost being provocative while driven by curious sex impulse to take advantage of Rose, which might be the most contentious segment of the film per se, and at least he acts like a pro.

My final conclusion is that regardless of its maternal inclination of female-skewing demography, it is indeed a thespian playing field with decent fodder.

A sweet little film that suffers from sentimentality. The performances of Duvall, Ladd, and Dern are all excellent and I especially liked Ladd's quirky feminist humanist character.

I did NOT like the flashback wrapper. It was superfluous and useless. I also did not like the choices that were made as to what scenes were important for the plot. The way it was presented did not make for an interesting story. They had these terrific characters played by great actors and they did nothing with them.

And not to be picky, but the music was terribly distracting. I didn't particularly like the score. It was uninteresting and didn't add anything to the story - there's no room left for interpretation because of the drippy, syrupy music underlying the scenes.

Martha Coolidge's Academy Award-nominated "Rambling Rose" is like few movies that I've seen. There's a Pat Conroy vibe here, but obviously a different story. It depicts a girl - the Rose of the title - working as a domestic servant for an affluent family in the southeast US in the '30s to escape prostitution. Before too long, her overt sexuality starts affecting the men of the house.

In telling the story from the older son's point of view, no character really comes across as a "good guy"; all the main characters do questionable things over the course of the movie. What I can say is that each of the cast members puts their all into the rolls. Laura Dern, Robert Duvall, Diane Ladd (Dern's real-life mom), Lukas Haas (the Amish boy in "Witness" and the teenager in "Mars Attacks!"), Lisa Jakub (the older daughter in "Mrs. Doubtfire") and John Heard (the dad in "Home Alone") put on fine performances, showing the characters' many dimensions. It's not a great movie, but the performances make it worth seeing.

I haven't seen this film in quite a while but I have pretty good memories about it. It's an intriguing film, something different and appealing even though some of the subject matter is "inappropriate."

I saw the last word because it involves a 13-year-old boy whose hormones are raging and his brief relationship with a grown woman. There is one sex scene that may make people squirm a bit, so be forewarned. Other than that, I don't remember anything else objectionable.

I like the photography and always enjoy seeing the old days - here it's the 1920s and 1930s - portrayed on today's films with the great cameramen and directors of today. Also, the South has some beautiful scenery that is eloquently on display here.

The story is well-acted with real-life mother-daughter Diane Ladd and Laura Dern, along with Robert Duvall and Lukas Haas. The latter plays the young man and was already somewhat of a star after playing the young Amish boy in the 1985 film "Witness." Duvall is one of the finest actors of his generation so you always get a good performance out of him.

This is a pretty low-key story but never puts you to sleep. Modern day feminists might like this film was Ladd plays that role to the hilt. Dern also delivered, making a very believable "Rose."

In this limp Southern period piece a wholesome young belle with the innocence of an angel and the manners of a whore supposedly disrupts the progressive Georgia household of Robert Duvall and Diane Ladd. The qualifier is necessary, because the film collapses into pure schmaltz almost before the end of the opening credits. The clumsy voice-over introduction by John Heard and the flashback (almost on cue) to his halcyon youth give fair warning to what kind of film this will be: safe, calculated, all-too polite, and adapted for the screen by a novelist obviously attached to his own words. The casting is attractive, but no one is given much of a character to work with. The title role gives Laura Dern a vehicle for some overripe histrionics, but despite her promiscuity Rose is simply one saint in a family of saints, and every conflict quickly disappears to allow them all a chance to live happily ever after (Rose is even spared the consequences of her constant, physical 'search for affection' by a convenient inability to bear children). In the end it might just be the perfect diversion for people who thought 'Driving Miss Daisy' too controversial and inflammatory.

Robert Duvall was splendid in this movie. I do not want to ruin it for people watching, so I can not tell you much but his acting was great as well as Laura Dern. What a dynamic and thought provocative movie with so many interesting twists that are unexpected. The wife was really good too. The morals of it, the conflicts, the family. This movie had it all, love, conflict, compassion, passion and all great acting too! I would imagine if this movie is a book I should read it actually. The nuances were subtle and well done, it did address some touchy topics as well. The young boy actor really was well cast too. I guess all in all, the casting was super, the dialog was well done and the way they captured the south was excellent as well.

Set in the South of the 1930's, film tells the story of "Rambling" Rose(Beautiful and appealing Laura Dern) who comes to the home of "Daddy" Hillyer(Robert Duvall), his wife "Mother"(Diane Ladd) and children, one of whom named Buddy(Lucas Haas) will come to love Rose, as she settles into their lives as a maid, but whose charm and beauty attract the attentions of all the local men, much to her employer's consternation, which will lead to a chain of events to have a lasting impact on the family, especially Buddy.

Very well acted film recreates its specific time & place quite well, and has an interesting story and character development. Only missteps with the framing device of the now adult Buddy(played by John Heard, who doesn't much resemble Haas!) not working well, seemed tacked on and anticlimactic. Still, a nice little film anyway, with many memorable scenes and colorful dialogue.

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 ****

My review was written in July 1991 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

Calder Willingham's memoir of the South "Rambling Rose" allows a talented ensemble to deliver the year's best screen acting so far. Funny and moving tale of an oversexed young woman will attract class audiences after its film festival exposure and has the potential to cross over to mainstream hit status.

It is difficult to conjure up another actress to embody Rose better than Laura Dern, whose tall, angular figure and striking (rather than beautiful) face under a row of curls personifies the naive title character.

She's a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who starts her life over as maid to the family of Robert Duvall and Diane Ladd in a small Georgia town in 1935. Rose is under a cloud, and it turns out that rumors of having been forced into prostitution at a tender age are true.

Both Duvall and his 13-year-old son Luka Haas are immediately taken by Dern's raw sexuality, yet it is the boy who nearly has his first conquest with her when Dern innocently gets in bed with him one night in a funny and risque scene.

Duvall is a proper gentleman, rejecting Dern's attempt at seduction and quickly adopting a fatherly concern for her. Family matriarch Ladd (Dern's real-life mom) is a Yankee educated at Columbia University, who also takes Dern under her wing and defends the girl under all circumstances.

Main source of conflict is Dern's promiscuous activities, which cause young men to loiter outside the house at all hours. This brings Duvall no end of grief in dealing with his uncontrollable charge.

Film climaxes in a classic scene involving Dern's future following her pregnancy scare that turns out to be an illness. Duvall and a stern Yankee doctor (terrifically played by Kevin Conway) come to a gentleman's agreement that a radical hysterectomy will end her loose ways. When Ladd stands up for the girl's rights, eliciting an apology and emotional turnaround from Duvaol, the film's main themes have been driven home with uncommon force and precision.

Pic is bookended by a scene of John Heard in 1971 portraying Haas grown to middle age, recalling the story and learning of Rose's fate from his aged father. Device is the film's weakest link but does not detract from the power of the main footage.

Dern's naturalness in a very eccentric role confirms the promise of her earlier work and makes Rose one of the most memorable characters in recent cinema. Duvall and Ladd play off each other to perfection, with Duvall maximizing all the humor inherent in author Willingham' odd turns of phrase.

The wide-eyed innocence and curiosity Haas brings to hsis rites-of-passage assignment are remarkable and help avoid the potential tastelessness in Dern's "robbing the cradle" scene with him. As his younger siblings, Lisa Jakub and Evan Lockwood also are affecting.

Director Martha Coolidge and herf technical crw have recreated the detail and texture of southern life with great feeling, filming this Carolco-financed picture at Carolco's Wilmington, North Carolina studio (formerly owned by the defunct De Laurentiis Entertainment Group). Like "Driving Miss Daisy", this quaint setting allows moral issues to be developed with subtlety rather than the inevitable didactic approach of a modern story.

Elmer Bernstein's warm musical accompaniment is a key asset to the film, but Nat King Cole's '60s pop hit "Rambling Rose" is not used on the soundtrack.

Depending on the impact of the year-end releases, "Rambling Rose" stands a good chance of being remembered come awards time. Pic has its world premiere August 22 as the opening night selection at the Montreal Film Festival.

I will never recommend it because of the bed scene between the two main characters. Never would I want anyone to think I condone a sex act between an adult and a child.

But the scene where Mother gives the doctor and her husband the what-for for suggesting a hysterectomy to cure Rose's nymphomania is Oscar-worthy.

Ladd, Dern, Haas and Duvall never disappoint in the perfectly casted story about eccentric southerners and a simple, young woman hungry for love and acceptance. And I found the mystery about Rose's mostly good health interesting, in that as a child from a poverty stricken family, what they ate during hard times.

Sans the DernHaas sex scene, I would highly recommend it, as it is an otherwise charming story.

It's a coming-of-age story set in Georgia during the Depression.

The film is based on a Southern family with some money, though the glory days seem to be fading. There is Daddy (Robert Duvall), Mother (Diane Ladd), 13-year-old Buddy (Lukas Haas/John Heard), 9-or 10-year old Dolly (Lisa Jakub), and 5- or 6-year=old Waski (Evan Lockwood). Mother graduated from Columbia University and is working on her M. A. in American History. She is pretty deaf and uses an early model of hearing aid. She brought the money into the family though she was an orphan at a young age. The hotel she inherited is run by Daddy, a true Southerner.

Into their lives comes Rose (Laura Dern), a 19-year-old woman who had a difficult childhood that is only described tangentially until near the end. Her past experiences have left minimal filters on her sexual life, which she appears to use to try to obtain love.

The film follows the struggles within the household, and the coming of age has to do with Buddy, who starts out as a brash, smartass eager to take advantage of this beautiful woman who has come into his house. In the end, this has turned into genuine affection. Mother, who is a feminist, understands and constantly defends Rose's erratic behavior. Daddy is uncertain how to deal with this young woman who embodies so much energy that continually gets her into trouble.

The movie is framed by an older Buddy who comes home 35 years later to visit his widowed father.

Laura Dern and her mother, Diane Ladd, were nominated for Academy Awards, but neither won. Lukas Haas will be remembered by many as the Amish boy who saw the murders in "Witness."

"Rambling Rose" was better than I expected. A few times, it teetered on the edge of exploitation but survived. I'll watch anything in which Robert Duvall has a significant role. When making the film, Lukas Haas, who was 14 or 15, plays the smirky young teen very well. Mother does seem a bit blind at times, but her instincts are correct.

Rose (Laura Dern) is taken in by the Hillyer family to serve as a 1930s housemaid so that she can avoid falling into a life of prostitution. Rose's appearance and personality is such that all men fall for her, and Rose knows it.

Some of this film is a little bit scandalous. I won't say what parts, but if you've seen it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Perhaps there ought to be laws about certain things (though this was the 1930s and people didn't care back then).

Laura Dern has made a nice career out of quirky roles. She may be best known for "Jurassic Park", but she has not shied away from David Lynch and others. I don't know the films of Martha Coolidge, but after seeing this one, I think maybe I ought to look for more.

I loved this movie. In updating my VHS collection to DVD I bought it a second time and was so glad that I did. I love the music score and the soft period lighting it provides in telling the story of Rose - a down on her luck teen-age almost adult girl who comes to live with a southern family during the depression in the 1930's. Although the film was edited for time (as all films are) the DVD provided more background information about the story through the commentary provided. Although I've never read the book - watching it again has made me decide that I want to.

I count this movie with others of its' kind (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER to name a few) as providing a wonderful opportunity to become a part of another's family memory. These kind of movies are capable of evoking in us a remembrance of our own childhood and bringing out feelings of warmth and caring that many of us have in common.

I highly recommend it for its beautiful photography and wonderful music.

Rambling Rose was a wonderful, sweet movie set in the south in the 1920-1930 period...with a great cast. I can't imagine it getting any better than Robert Duvall as Daddy saying,:"Rosebud, you are as graceful as the letter S". And mother, Diane Ladd, saying to Daddy, something to the effect of "shooting him right between the eyes...with truth!" It just does not get any better than that! I loved it when Robert Duvall took on the old doctor head on...to save Rose. Lucas Hass, John Heard, and all the cast was wonderful. The dialog, the lighting, the camera work were all outstanding and all wrapped together made a memorable experience. I fell in love with this film.

Rambling Rose certainly has its individual moments. Rose unintentionally corrupting the two Hillyer men. Dern and Duvall's stellar performances. The point it makes about men controlling women. Unfortunately, Rose is an incredibly vexing character, and not is the way the movie intends. Are we supposed to be sad for her? Love her? The movie seems to want that, but I don't. Ultimately, it's a boring, sappy and pointless period drama.

This movie gives a eyeopening glimpse of the 1930's and a hidden agenda of a very moralistic time. It is a charming story of the maid's attempt to walk the line between her own natural inclinations and the societies expectations for her. Laura Dern offers a very realistic and convincing performance that marks her as a great character actress. The interaction with her own mother, in the supporting cast, shows a natural adaptation to a role that is rare in such a young actress. Duvall is wonderful in a role that demands a vast understanding of human emotion and character study of his part. The set and old automobiles lend a real authenticity to this period in history. It takes you back to a simpler time, but underscores all of the attitudes of the time. This is a movie to be enjoyed again and again at each opportunity. I highly recommend it.

Gorgeous, touching film about a Southern family in the 1930s whose lives are disrupted by the arrival of Rose (Laura Dern), a so-called "loose" woman with a real heart of gold. Dern is perfectly cast in the delightful title role, and her real-life mother Diane Ladd is brilliant as the matriarch of the conservative clan who does everything in her power to make sure the ignorant and self-righteous men around her don't harm the charming and "rambling" girl. Director Martha Coolidge has made a light and delicious Southern delicacy on par with Jon Avnet's "Fried Green Tomatoes" that is never less than totally enjoyable.

I will never cease to be amazed how historically inaccurate movies are or how morally bankrupt the people responsible for making films these days are. No one in the thirties would have kept a tramp as a house keeper especially with children in the house. It simply would not have happened and all the stupid reasons it might have happened are leftist writers pushing their agenda using a period movie to disguise their moral depravity. There are the usual digs at the South which were totally uncalled for and not probable by coming from the mouths of Southerns and the wife actually defends moral equivalence in one speech. Total rot. The only reason I watched the piece of garbage to the end was to see how bad the plot would get. It didn't fail to live up to my worse fears. Happily this movie was not exactly a huge hit, but then not too many movies are these days. The public isn't stupid.