IFC Films
A lot of times during awards season there is one particular ‘surprise’ of someone who’s been delivering great work for years but is now ‘due’. This last year was both Richard E. Grant and Olivia Colman, although only Olivia won (correctly). It’s a way of realizing and acknowledging that honestly, character actors can be great too, but we never notice them (aside from the weirdo film and TV nerds on the Internet).
Diane comes from director Kent Jones in his first film, and it is obviously one of those. Highly pretentious in many ways, about as pure ‘indie drama’ as you can imagine, with great acting work hidden away among overwrought filmic flourishes. Mary Kay Place, a classic ‘who’s that’ actress whose worked for decades, stars as the eponymous Diane as the ultimate self-sacrificing woman.
The final reveal (which I won’t say) isn’t such a shocker at all, but feels normal within the context of this sort of indie story. The world of the movie is often in shadows, keeping us from seeing things clearly. It makes you wonder if it was intentional and meant to have a ‘meaning’. Visualizations in movies are important, but sometimes directors can go overboard and obscure the deeper story they are trying to tell and the messages they are trying to convey.
The film constantly shows her driving from place to place, her face hidden and obscured, only the surroundings clear — a metaphor for her choice never to look to help herself. In a small town (as to be expected), Diane has typical routines, which are all burdens. She visits her dear friend Donna (Deirdre O’Connell) often in the hospital, who is terminal but is still lucid most of the time. Diane also volunteers at her local church, and is always helping out with her relatives at their frequent family gatherings.
Her deepest problem is the one of her son Brian (Jake Lacy), suffering from addiction and in and out of rehab. Brian is angry and in pain, and Diane can mostly only be a temporary salve for such trauma. Despite all that, she cares, and this key message, that giving of yourself can be full of grace, is hardly pretentious at all.
Mary Kay Place is receiving a lot of praise for her work here, and it’s certainly deserved. Whatever you want to say about this movie, whether it’s the clichés and drawn out drama meant for scenes of maximum pain and introspection, the highly considered cinematography, or very particular dialog, the acting is also quite good. I think Jake Lacy (from The Office) has never quite had such a complex role, but I think he does quite well here — it’s not easy to have an addiction character who doesn’t slip into caricature.
I think my real problem with Diane is that the movie plods in a meandering pace, taking forever to get started, and taking its time so meticulously that for me, it all gets lost in the weeds. This is like catnip for indie film nerds and critics, so I’m not shocked at all the praise the movie is getting, nor am I surprised at the lack of praise among the general public. There’s a lot of intelligent work in the structure here, a lot of promise and potential for something more.
It reminds me a bit of the similarly ‘not quite there’ debut of John Krasinski as a director, and his follow up of The Quiet Place was marked by most as a triumph. Perhaps that is what’s next for Kent Jones, but for me, this is classic end of winter uninteresting indie sad drama.
Want to see Diane and judge for yourself? Click on the image below to see the movie, and be sure to come back and tell us what you thought!
Diane has a run time of 1 hour 35 minutes and is unrated.
IFC Films
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