 |
| Katie Holmes plays a peculiar vigilante in "Miss Meadows" |
During the opening scene of “Miss Meadows,” the title
character played by Katie Holmes is taking a stroll through her quaint Ohio
town—the kind of tree-lined utopia where birds are gently chirping and it’s
quiet enough to see a pair of fawns casually prance across a lawn—when suddenly
a creepy guy pulls up in a pickup truck and begins to threaten her. Undaunted,
she pulls out a short barrel pistol from her tiny purse and shoots him dead
without a flicker of emotion.
It’s not exactly the same as discovering a severed human
ear in a field, but the way an idyllic, peaceful neighborhood is abruptly
jarred by violence is reminiscent of that notorious first sequence of David
Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.”
Written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins, “Miss
Meadows” is also a close cousin to the “Death Wish” films, with the titular
heroine—who doubles as an elementary school teacher and wears clothes (white
gloves, bar shoes) that make her look like she stepped out a 50s sitcom—fearlessly
protecting the suburbs from bad guys the way Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey
covered the inner city. She’s similarly conflicted, we learn, when a lurid
flashback reveals that as a child, she witnessed her mother being slain in a
drive-by shooting.
As the body count rises, the dull town sheriff (inertly
played James Badge Dale) arrives and instead of arresting Meadows predictably
falls in love with her, believing their strange, quickly evolving romance—she
gets pregnant during an embarrassingly comic sex scene and they later agree to
get married—will turn the deranged sociopath into a suitable housewife and
mother. Meanwhile, a sinister looking ex-con moves into the neighborhood and
starts skulking around the kids at school, setting up an inevitable showdown
with Meadows.
“Miss Meadows” is an intriguing but ultimately messy mix
of style and tone, hitting notes of dark comedy and folding in awkward bits of social
commentary that feel forced and preachy rather than genuinely edgy or
provocative. The usually sunny Holmes gamely takes the lead, but the bizarre
vigilante satire has her treading murky waters. There’s ideas and an attitude
here, but not enough cohesion.
