Jack & Diane (Blu-ray Review)

5 Jan, 2013 By: Ashley Ratcliff

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Street 1/8/13
Magnolia
Romance
Box Office $0.001 million
$26.98 DVD, $29.98 Blu-ray
Rated ‘R’ for strong sexual content, including nudity and an assault, bloody violence, language and drinking — all involving teens.
Stars Juno Temple, Riley Keough, Cara Seymour, Kylie Minogue.

An homage to the upbeat ditty of the same name by John Cougar Mellencamp this is not. Rather, Jack & Diane is an erratic tale of two teenage girls who embark on a fast-paced romance that shows the ugly side of love.

Jack (Riley Keough, who was excellent in The Good Doctor), a skateboarding tomboy, and Diane (Juno Temple from The Dark Knight Rises), a wandering Brit (on holiday visiting her aunt) with a curious nosebleed, meet by chance and spend the whole night making out in a Manhattan club. The two are inseparable and fall deep in love rather quickly — so quickly that viewers will have a hard time believing it’s happening.

But the honeymoon ends for these two lovebirds when Jack learns that Diane will be leaving in a couple of weeks to study fashion abroad in Paris. Although she has a tough exterior, Jack has strong feelings for Diane, so much so that she wants Diane to have her deceased brother’s treasured tape of some sappy love song. The feeling’s mutual for the less-experienced Diane.

All the while, jarring scenes of what appears to be the pulsating inner workings of some creature (slithering strands of hair amid oozing slime) are interspersed throughout, almost for no reason, it seems.

Jack & Diane is an unusual mixture of romance and horror, and requires some out-of-the-box thinking. The beast (presumably Jack) is unleashed in one gory, vivid scene in which Diane rips its heart out and eats it. If the filmmakers intended the monster theme (brought out on several occasions in random ways) to be some poignant metaphor, its significance was lost on this viewer.

However, the film does a good job of keeping viewers engaged with its unexpected, intense imagery.

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