7/10
A Great Stretch For Bledel
24 February 2014
Two teenage assassins accept what they think will be a quick-and-easy job, until an unexpected target (James Gandolfini) throws them off their plan.

"Violet & Daisy" received mostly negative reviews; it received a rotten rating of 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. How this happened is unknown, because I think it is rather outstanding in its own way.

Alexis Bledel is probably best known for the quirky role of Rory Gilmore in the "Gilmore Girls". While she was excellent in that, she had a rather limited range. This takes her outside of that, with a darker tone and a different brand of comedy. I thought it was hilarious.

The use of flower names was clever and not at all annoying like it could be, even when the third girl (Rose) is added in. They also happen to share names with Daisy and Violet Hilton, well-known Siamese twins. Was this intentional? Probably not, but it seemed like an interesting take to me.

Matt Zoller Seitz sums the film up this way: "Gandolfini's quietly magnificent performance is the only reason to see 'Violet & Daisy,' a thriller that might as well have been released in 1996, when everybody and their brother and their sister and their cousin twice-removed was trying to be Quentin Tarantino, writing screenplays about loquacious hit men and gangsters and molls delivering cutesy monologues in wacky, not-quite-real universes." I see what he is getting at, but why must the best type of film from the 90s remain in the 90s? This is more than a rip off or homage to Tarantino, but a worthy spiritual successor.
3 out of 8 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed