Product Description

Janet mcteer portrays a sexy southern gal with a heart of gold a hearty appetite for life and supremely bad taste in men. An irresistible tale of an unbreakable mother-daughter bond. Special features: commentary by writer/director gavin oconnor case and crew biographies and much more. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/10/2005 Starring: Janet Mcteer Kimberly J. Brown Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Gavin Oconnor

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32295 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2000-11-24
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com
So authentic is Janet McTeer's performance as a feisty Southern mother and faded party girl in Tumbleweeds that if you didn't know better, you'd say this wasn't the same Janet McTeer, British stage actress, who won a Tony as Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House on Broadway. McTeer's turn as modern-day Southern belle Mary Jo seems so genuine that you'd think this actress had grown up in the shade of magnolia trees sipping mint juleps. However, it's not just McTeer's flawless acting that makes Tumbleweeds so memorable. First-time director Gavin O'Connor, who cowrote the screenplay with Angela Shelton, has crafted a refreshing and unsentimental tale of a mother (McTeer) and daughter (Kimberly J. Brown) who wander the country like the titular rolling plants; whenever one of her badly chosen boyfriends threatens her or her daughter, Mary Jo packs up the car and heads for a new state. When daughter Ava persuades her to head for southern California, Mary Jo takes up with a genial if temperamental truck driver (director O'Connor) and starts the pattern all over again. However, as Ava approaches adolescence, she becomes less and less tolerant of her mother's behavior, and starts to find her own voice. Tumbleweeds is what would have been called a "little" film, long on character development and short on plot, but in a day and age when deeply etched characters are getting harder to come by, it qualifies as a definite landmark, especially in comparison with the similarly plotted but more sentimental Anywhere But Here. You won't find any crying jags, schmaltzy breakups, contrived meet-cutes, or patently fake movie moments in this film--instead, there's a mother-daughter relationship that remains complex, joyous, and heartfelt throughout. Brown matches McTeer scene for scene, and her Ava qualifies as one of filmdom's most realistic teens. These two women, along with O'Connor, create a quiet, perfectly rendered gem of a film. With superb supporting performances by Laurel Holliman as McTeer's newly found friend and Jay O. Sanders as a widower still not over the death of his wife. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker
The camera is relaxed, moving with the characters, but still the great English actress Janet McTeer, in her first major film performance, bursts the frame with her vitality. This actress has more body, bigger eyes, a freer laugh-more soul, too-than we are used to seeing in movies. Her Mary Jo, a slightly frayed Southern working-class beauty, depends on her ability to attract men. Nothing else has ever really worked for her, but when she jumps into relationships, she's too honest to keep her mouth shut, and soon she has to jump out of them, dragging her little daughter (Kimberly Brown) along with her. Mary Jo is lovable but exasperating, and the mixed feelings she promotes make the movie continuously exciting. A small picture, but a fully felt one. Written by Angela Shelton and Gavin O'Connor, who also plays Mary Jo's irritable boyfriend and directs, with an easy hand. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

It made me laugh, it made me cry...
I postponed seeing this film in the theatre because the DVD can be purchased for the price of two movie tickets. I usually triage films I eventually watch -- some I must see on the big screen, some I rent, and some I buy on blind faith and film reviews. This film fell into the last category. The critics wrote very favorable comments about Janet MeTeer's performance, and of course she won a Golden Globe, so I wasn't taking too much of a risk, and I was not disappointed in my decision.

Janet McTeer plays a dislocated single mom named Mary Jo Walker. She is so real I swear I knew her back in North Carolina. Her daughter Ava, played by Kimberly J. Brown looks like a real child and has a real child's problems.

I couldn't gauge the time period of the film but the bathing suits were right out of the late fifties or early sixties (they weighed a ton when you got them wet). Ava's English teacher uses the phrase "dissed" which seems out of place to me as I don't remember that term being used before the seventies.

Depending on the period, things were better or worse for single moms and their offspring although California was the place to be until very recently if you wanted to survive (too expensive now! ). There was a time when the only way a female could deal with an unhappy home life was to "get married" and run away, and then "get married" and run away, etc. and the first thing you knew you woke up one morning and found you had been married 3 or 4 times, were unemployed, and still waiting for the knight in shining armor who never seemed to show up.

I know what it feels like to run away from an abusive parent at age 17, dropping out of high-school and marrying the first guy who asked. Heck, I went straight from North Carolina to California. If you've misjudged--and most do--you end up bouncing along from one pillar to another post waiting for something to work out.

This film reveals how misjudgments happen. Women who make bad choices aren't bad -- just hurt, scared, and uninformed about other, better choices. My single mom friends and I survived by befriending each other, and showing each other how to "rise above" problems. This wonderful film celebrates that triump.

I LOVED THIS MOVIE!
Tumbleweeds was a brilliant film. Both Janet McTeer and Kimberly Brown were outstanding as a mother and daugther travelling pretty much across country and running away from mean boyfriends. It is a great story of a relationship between mother and daughter, and not only is Mary Jo a great mother but she is also a great friend to her daughter. This film made me laugh alot. There is alot of humor to it. I rented the DVD, and after the ending(which i loved, that's all i will say about it), I watched it w/ the audio commentary for awhile, and it's a great way to learn more about the whole process of film making, and I would not have known that the director/writer of the film had also acted in it. I recommend this film to all, It's a must see!

Tumbleweeds
A familar mother-daughter tale receives refreshingly uncompromising treatment in "Tumbleweeds", buoyed by a stellar performance from McTeer, who was Oscar-nominated. Young Brown also shines as a daughter forced to grow up too soon. Director O'Connor knows his material, and does a fine turn himself as rugged trucker Jack, Sara Jo's latest love interest.