When I first heard about “Jack and Diane”, it looked like it would be my type of film. It looked like one of those weird werewolf love stories. Knowing me, if a genre film looks different, then I’m interested.
The film is about two teenage girls, Jack (Riley Keough) and Diane (Juno Temple) who meets on the streets of New York. They spend a night kissing each other while having fun. Diane and charming qualities soon begins to break through Jack’s dark and emotional heart. Their romance is threatened, when Jack finds out that Diane is leaving for boarding school. Unable to control her feelings for Jack, Diane starts experiencing violent and unexplainable changes in her body. Thru all of this, the girls must find away to keep and turn their love into a lasting one.
I went into “Jack and Diane” thinking that this was going to have at least some horrific action going on, as it felt like this was going to be a werewolf film. Sadly, I didn’t feel that this film was after the end of the film. This was one of those films where there isn’t much horrific action going on, even though it had good acting and good direction.
One of the things that made the direction good was the fact that writer/director Bradley Rust Gray does a good job handling the scenes. He takes his time to make sure that scenes had a dark tone to them. It allowed the gothic and obscure elements work. The scenes had a raw feel to it, which helped the main relationship work. The other thing that made the scenes work was the animation. Gray incorporates the animation from the Quay Brothers. It helps make the horror elements work, even though there isn’t much of the way of horrific action here. The other thing that I liked about Gray’s direction was the way that managed to get good performances out of his two leads. He does a good job making sure that the two actresses work well together. Both Juno Temple and Riley Keough did a good job with the way that they developed chemistry with each other. It helped make the relationship with the two characters work so well and made this film watchable.
Gray’s screenplay for the most part was so-so. The main thing that I liked about his screenplay was that focuses on the relationship between the two main characters. Gray does a very good job focusing on the aspects of their relationship from the fun times to the dark times. It makes you interested in the relationship and in the main characters. If it wasn’t for the fact that I liked the relationship part of the film so much, I would have had more of a negative view on this screenplay.
If there was one major thing that I didn’t like about this film was the character development. I wanted it go into more detail into the relationships between Diane and her aunt and the problems in Jack’s life. Gray made them feel like afterthoughts. It could’ve provided an interesting subplot or two, which would have given the film some more life than the end result.
“Jack and Diane” is a film that won’t please horror fans. But if you’re in the mood for a love story, then this would work for you.
Review Rating: Three Stars
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