Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:
After showing himself a master at juggling autobiographical material in Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, both dealing with his childhood in Liverpool during the 50s, Terence Davies adapts a novel by John Kennedy Toole about growing up in the rural deep south in the late 30s and 40s—and it’s remarkable how persuasively he handles this milieu while making it wholly his own. Two substantial assists are provided by Gena Rowlands (starring as the narrator-hero’s disreputable aunt, a onetime torch singer) and the ‘Scope format, both of which boost some of the mythological possibilities in the material.Read More »