Twisting in the Wind

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 1999)

What a funny and poignant analysis of my narcissistic baby-boom generation this is. Not only are the portraits accurate, but, for the first time, I feel some sympathy for this current crop of teenagers as opposed to teenagers in general. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are excellent as the lead characters. Especially Bening, who managed to make her repulsively obsessive character interesting and three-dimensional. I actually felt sorry for her as her life crumbled. Kevin Spacey's character, on the other hand, left me cold. Perhaps if he had done something besides whine, leer, blackmail, and indulge himself, I would have felt better about his general kindness. His performance was engaging and believable, but other than retrieving the plate of asparagus, nothing he did made me want to root for him.
Chris Cooper did his usual outstanding job playing complex individuals with inner demons, but Wes Bentley was the standout in this film. His portrayal of an intense controlled teenager who found beauty in death and emptiness defined the film for me. It was nice to have Thora Birch, a first-class teenage actress, playing the sanest member of the cast. Birch and Bentley together made me care about the devastation wrought by their self-involved, if not catatonic, parents.
When I first left the theater, I thought the ending was too contrived and off-handed. Over time as I replayed the scenes in my mind, it made more sense to me. Each adult had been struggling so long to survive and to keep up appearances that they had forgotten why they bothered to do so. Somewhere they had lost whatever was of value in their lives. Now, like Ricky's dancing bag, they were all just twisting in the wind and dragging their children along with them until the wind stopped blowing.