SYNOPSICS
Evergreen (2004) is a English movie. Enid Zentelis has directed this movie. Cara Seymour,Mary Kay Place,Noah Fleiss,Gary Farmer are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2004. Evergreen (2004) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
Fourteen year old Henrietta--Henri for short--longs for everything she doesn't have. Looking down a road that turns bad instead of right, Henri and her mother Kate are forced to move in with her grandmother in a leaking shack on the edge of town. Henri is hell bent on finding a way out. At the same time, Henri meets a boy at school, Chat Turly, and becomes infatuated with his seemingly ideal wealthy family. Henri overlooks some of the curious behavior she witnesses at the Turlys', choosing instead to see what she wants to see as she tries desperately to become a part of the family. When Henri can no longer ignore the severe flaws in Chat's home life, she comes to appreciate what she does have in a new light.
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Evergreen (2004) Reviews
A fair representation of the 'indie' spirit and a reminder of its limitations.
Single moms with teenage daughters are heroes for our times: They must be self reliant, tough, tender and suffer the slings and arrows of a culture that worships youth, which in the teen years is unremittingly disrespectful of the adults that made that culture possible. Writer/director Enid Zentelis has a first feature, 'Evergreen,' which minimally shows some of that teenage rebellion but mostly gives a realistic and rarely obnoxious (Remember Holly Hunter's harried mom in 'Thirteen'?) account of a mother Kate (Cara Seymour, 'Adaptation') and her teen daughter, Henri (talented newcomer Addie Land) starting life again in Tulalip, Washington (filmed in Everett). Kate's vision for Henri says everything about the limits of poverty, the narrow field of expectation, and the accompanying deficiency of taste: "Someday you could manage a fancy department store." Zentelis approaches cliché territory by showing how impoverished this couple is (Grandma's apartment leaks literal buckets) and how rich Henri's boyfriend, Chat (Noah Fleiss, 'Bringing Rain') is (He drives a Jeep Cherokee)-both rich and poor share the stereotypes of the former wanting out of poverty and the latter corrupted by privilege. Yet the director never condescends to either, for she seems to respect their limitations: Chat's mother, Susan (Mary Kay Place, 'Sweet Home Alabama'), is agoraphobic and father, Frank (Bruce Davison, 'Rules of the Game') an alcoholic; Kate has self image problems, and Henri is ashamed of their poverty (Shame accompanies most teens like acne anyway). The film delves not deeply into any of these characters while making a full study of the trappings and trials of wealth and poverty. It does, however, have a fully round character in Jim (Gary Farmer, 'Adaptation'), a Native American casino dealer who sees better than anyone the goodness of Kate and Henri, though he knows Henri stole money from him and doesn't know that Kate stole booze from Chat's parents. He is open and loving, perhaps the very spirit of the Pacific Northwest. 'Anywhere But Here,' 'Tumbleweeds,' and the well-known 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' all deal with the rambling mom and daughter. In each we can be reminded of Jane Erskine Stuart's notion that 'in no order of things is adolescence the time pf the simple life.' 'Evergreen' contributes a minimalist realism to the genre while missing crisp dialogue and character development (except for Henri) to make it stand out. 'Evergreen' is a fair representation of the 'indie' spirit and a reminder of its limitations. (This film is played only in AMC theaters through Digital Theater Distribution System [DTDS], which feeds directly from satellite, obviating the need for film reels. Our image was digital dull.)
Keep Going and Don't Look Back
I grew up about 20 minutes outside of Marysville, WA and left that crap town about two minutes after I turned 18. Evergreen is the reason why. The plot may seem slow and manufactured to some, but that's just because they don't have the depth to understand that kind of life. The Pacific Northwest is a unique place: there's poverty with few ways out and the writer accurately displayed its territory of factories and Indian casinos. If your family wasn't in on the Intel or Microsoft boom, then you were likely at the mercy of the Georgia Pacific factory (Toliet Paper) or Bellingham Cold Storage (frozen fish factory). Inidan Reservations can only get support from the government through establishing a Casino, which often wouldn't create the revenues they needed to sustain their initial investments. Although I had the advantage (or should I say disadvantage) of understanding these characters unique situations because I too, was raised in a four room shack with a leaky roof, we had vermin and a garage with no garage doors, as well as an unmanicured lawn because we couldn't afford to fix the lawnmower- I still believe the writer had a larger responsibility to the audience to which does not understand these circumstances, let alone the little victories and joy in escaping them. The acting was sympathetic and believable, but the writing could have been strengthened if - instead of being shown the rainy depressing details of the town - we experienced them through the characters. Henri never goes to the edge the way you do when you truly are in poverty like that. Trust me on that. We only saw a little fight here or there, but no significant strain of plot. When you're up against the wall in that kind of poverty - without enough money for "bus fare" and you don't have your own bed as the roof above leaks on you, there are ways of coping. Drugs, alcohol, sex, prostitution, runaways, crime, vandalism...and all we see is just a little more than what a suburbanite kid on an ABC after school special might turn to. This film couldn't help but grab me because it pulled me back into a place I left 12 years ago with a piece of junk car much like the one Kate's boyfriend drove around in. The grass, trees, sound of rain, the logs, the storefronts, it was all set still in time, and it was the first time I'd been back to that place I never wanted to set foot in again. But not every moviegoer will have this perspective. Sometimes, there's a reason not to go back, and after seeing this film I now remember why. It left me with that same hopeless, tired, sad feeling that being in a family of victims is as high in life as one can go. Thank God that piece of junk car of mine just kept going. I'd suggest you do the same.
Addie Land adds a freshness to this film.
Addie Land captures the moments in the life of a teenage girl faced with the disparity between the realities her own family faces as working poor and the middle class prosperity of her peers. She is positioned to make decisions about what she is willing to put on the line to better her circumstances--her family--her virginity--her identity. Finally, a movie for young women with some depth. Addie plays the role of the girl, Henri, and she just adds a freshness to the film--she is a natural on screen. The film is set in the northwest--it has style. I saw the film at Sundance this year but understand it may be coming out to theaters soon. Try to check it out.
Fleiss is a great surprise
Noah Fleiss ("Brick", "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her") certainly saved this movie from total oblivion. Unfortunately, the movie was based on the believability of Henri (Addie Land) as a girl from a low-income family wanting a change, and the believability wasn't there. Henri seemed more like an affluent California girl pretending to be from a poor family, which was not what the director intended nor what we wanted to see. Chat (Fleiss), however, was supposed to provide us with a picture of a shallow affluent teen male, a living cliché, and that is precisely what we got -- effective and, in the final analysis, humorously absurd. Fleiss dependably surprises with the convincing quality of his roles, and this one was so well done that I rather think there might be viewers who thought Fleiss himself was shallow. Although the remainder of the movie has little to recommend it, go into it expecting only to see a gem of a performance by Noah Fleiss and you will in no way be disappointed.
Good Film - Terrible Technology
Evergreen is a type of film that I particularly enjoy. It deals with the lives of people we might ignore or shun if we encountered them in the course of our own lives. Nevertheless, these people share aspirations and frustrations common to all humanity and the adversities they strive to overcome make such people fascinating. Evergreen is well written and extremely well acted. The cast can't be faulted on any level. On the other hand, "Gas, Food, Lodging," a film that is, in many respects, similar is vastly superior to this one. As an experiment with the potential to make movie distribution far more profitable than currently is the case, AMC has converted this film to digital technology and is "feeding" the film to its theaters via satellite. The resultant images are dark, murky and lacking in precise focus. My own large screen TV provides a much superior image and it is not "state-of-the art" technology. I will not be seeing any more films that employ this crude technology. I'd rather wait for the DVD or, even, skip the whole experience.