Hounddog (mmm...Not the T)

Every so often a screener finds itself on my desk, and I end up watching it. Well, this film was one of those situations. The film is about a young girl named Lewellen (Fanning) who lives a hard knock life in the South, inspired to sing by Elvis.

Here, we meet the downside of the Writer/Director. As one myself, what a W/D can learn from a movie like this is not being SO attached to the material at a critical point--there needed to be a shift from writer TO director in this movie. I say this because as writers we can get very attached to our material and want it all in, and may lack the objectivity to retool or cut out what isn't working or serving the overall story. This is the case with Hounddog. Note:SPOILERS do follow.

A great deal of time is spent setting up her family situation as well as her friendship with a little boy appropriately named Buddy. Her father, (Morse) shows her off to company, wanting her to sing Elvis for his new girlfriend. At one point I was like, "Okay, her ish is messed up!" Her father is emotionally and physically abusive, and it's not really clear if there is any inappropriate sexual behavior between them. She has her stern grandmother played by Piper Laurie (Carrie's mama in the Stephen King movie). Their relationship is interesting because it matures Lewellen in a very different way then the relationship with her drinking, abandoning father parentifies her.

Things look up when Elvis is rumored to come to town and Lewellen's gotta go. But with no money for a ticket how is it gonna happen? Buddy will get it for her, but it turns out his plan to get her the ticket gets her sexually violated by the teen aged milk deliverer.

Her only escape from all this is her relationship with Charles (Omilami) a Brotha that plays music and is a snake tamer. Here's where the film REALLY gets old and played out to me. Yes, I understand the setting is Jim Crow south, but here we have a situation where Charles' life (as he is shown) revolves around saving the poor little white girl, and helping her find her "god-given gift" AAAARGH! If I've seen it once, I've seen in ten million times. He takes her abuse and even is called the notorious n-word by her and yet he sees the bigger picture with her. His character isn't developed so that we even know how he knows this girl, or if he even has his own family or children--who, by the way would benefit more from the amount of time he spends with Lewellen. His character is developed like he is invisible, only to serve Lewellen. And to top it all off, he's the only one to genuinely care about this girl. I have definitely had my fill of this type of ish in the movie industry--both commercial and indie.

Oh, did I mention that her daddy got struck by lightening went from an ass to Forrest Gump's baby brother? Lol...I didn't? Well, he did. This was so odd to me, I had to research the effects of being struck by lightening. I definitely think the writer should have mentioned through dialogue that her daddy was going to be "slow" the rest of the movie.

*sigh*

Overall, the movie was not the "T". It could've definitely used another draft before production, or at least a tighter edit. It seemed long, and could've had the characters developed more.