Georgia Rule

Plot synopsis:
Rebellious 17-years-old Rachel screams, drugs, drinks, fights with everyone and has sex with several boys; she is, in a word, uncontrollable. With her latest car crash, Rachel has broken the final rule in her mother Lily's San Francisco home. With nowhere else to take the impulsive and rambunctious girl, Lily hauls her daughter to the one place she swore she'd never return—her own mother's house in Idaho. Matriarch Georgia lives her life by a number of unbreakable rules—God comes first, and hard work comes a very close second—and wants that anyone who shares her home do the same. Now saddled with raising the young woman, it requires each patient breath she takes to understand Rachel's fury.
Georgia arranges a job for Rachel as the office girl of Dr. Simon Ward, the local veterinarian, who also unofficially treats people. His two nephews Sam and Ethan are often at Georgia's house. Simon does not show interest in Rachel or other women, so she thinks he is gay. However, Simon's sister Paula reveals that he is still mourning the death of his wife and son who were killed in a car collision three years earlier. He refuses to have sex with Rachel even when she tries to seduce him, but feels some passion for her mother Lily, whom he has dated in the past.
Rachel performs oral sex on Harlan Wilson, who, not yet being married, was still a virgin because of his LDS (Mormon) religion. He confesses to his LDS girlfriend, who is shocked. A team of LDS girls spy on Harlan to make sure he does not "have sex" again. After almost running them over with Harlan's truck, Rachel explains to them that what happened was over and that they can go back to having their summer fun. They agree to do so, but they tell Rachel to go home, leading Rachel to threaten them by saying if they have anything to do with her and Harlan again she will find all of their boyfriends and "fuck them stupid", at which point they stop insulting her and stop spying on Harlan.
While trying to make a point to Simon about survival, Rachel bluntly says that her stepfather Arnold sexually molested her from the time she was 12 until she turned 14. Seeing the effect of her revelation, Rachel tries to convince him she lied. However, Simon tells Georgia about the abuse, and Georgia tells Lily, who thinks Rachel is lying. Heartbroken, Lily comes to believe her daughter, begins to drink heavily and asks Arnold for a divorce.
When Arnold arrives, Georgia tells him to leave, and refuses to allow him in the house. Finally, she forces him to leave by hitting him with a baseball bat; when he still refuses to leave the property, she threatens to hit his new red Ferrari. Rachel sees that Lily cannot accept the truth, and lies to her about being molested.
At the motel where Arnold is staying Rachel tells him that she has a video tape of the two having sex when she was 14, and Arnold seems worried. Rachel demands $10 million if he does not keep Lily happy. She admits to him that she told Lily lies because she does not want her to be upset anymore. On the way back to San Francisco Arnold tells Lily that he is giving Rachel his Ferrari, and Lily realizes that he is guilty.
Lily starts a raging argument/attack and Arnold finally admits to having molested Rachel numerous times, using the excuse that Rachel seduced him, Lily's alcoholism drove him to it and that Rachel enjoyed it. so Arnold drives off, leaving Lily to walk home. Georgia, Simon, Rachel, and Harlan catch up with Lily in Harlan's pick-up truck and a tearful Rachel apologizes for her behavior. Harlan tells Georgia that he is in love with Rachel and plans to marry her when he gets back from his two-year mission.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Felicity Huffman, played Lindsay Lohan's distressed mother and slowly throughout the movie it is seen how closely alike they are.
From the looks of the finished product, I'd say a lot of the film ended up on the cutting room floor - too many scenes are simply not dealt with the way they should have been - like when Jane goes to buy the liquor - where's the struggle with the issue of what she is doing?
The Difference Between Truth and Lie. The rebel, reckless and spoiled teenager Rachel Wilcox (Lindsay Lohan) travels from San Francisco to the conservative Mormon Hull, Idaho, with her alcoholic mother Lily (Felicity Huffman) to spend the summer with her grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda).
While with Georgia, Rachel reveals a traumatic secret from her past that explains her rebelliousness and brings her mother back to Idaho to check whether her daughter is telling the truth.The screenplay of "Georgia Rule" is unusual, beginning with comedy but developing in a touching drama related to child abuse and relationship among three generations of the same family.
The lead female characters are dysfunctional: Rachel lies, uses drugs and booze and behaves like a slut, with no sense of morality; her mother Lily is an alcoholic woman; and her grandmother Georgia does not express her love with her tough rules.
The gorgeous Lindsay Lohan and Felicity Huffman are amazing, but Jane Fonda performs a strange but fair character.
Given the press surrounding Lohan during the filming, my expectations were pretty low and I was very surprised at how good she was and how good the movie was.
I'm not sure why I decided to rent Georgia Rule, but I guess you could just color me intrigued since this is the film that I heard where Lindsay Lohan caused all that trouble on being late constantly or not showing up on set.
But the rest of the story was really good, funny at times, and very touching.Rachel is a young trouble maker from California coming to Idaho to see her grandmother, Georgia, and stay with her for the summer.
Georgia won't tolerate this though, she knows there's something wrong and has to let Rachel know that there are people there who love her and remind her the difference between right and wrong.The story was really good I think, some of the characters could have used a little more developing, but it still worked.
Opening with an unbelievable scene of mother-daughter conflict on the open highway, rebellious teenager Lindsay Lohan goes to sleep on the side of the road, is awakened by a Mormon hunk who inadvertently feels her up (thinking she's dead), and ends up hitching a ride into town with a veterinarian whom the girl decides must be gay because he didn't look at her exposed legs once.
Lindsay, Ms. Jane Fonda, and Felicity Huffman are wonderful in this very poignant and said tale of the relationship of mother and daughter and granddaughter.The R rating is what spoils it for the kids.
Of course all three generations come to an agonizing reappraisal of their situation and in that fateful summer they get to know each other better.Life does imitate art because the film is now getting reams of publicity due to Lindsay Lohan's behavioral problems in real life.
Georgia Rule has been pushed by the three main stars, Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and Lindsey Lohan in all the talk shows during the past week.
Dermot Mulroney does fine work, as the Idahoan doctor/veterinarian, who helps Lohan "find her way home." Huffman is truly touching as a mother torn between truth and lies.
Lohan's character was exactly as I envision her to be in real life, except that in the end she comes down to earth.This was so bad that my daughter wanted to see another movie immediately just to get this one out of her thoughts - - yeah, it was sick.The best part of this film is the house and town that Georgia lives in!
There are some great comedic bits in the movie, but majority of the story revolves around whether or not Rachel (Lindsay Lohan) was raped by her stepfather for two years starting when she was 12, or if she is simply lying to get attention.
Jane Fonda was good, but nothing too stellar from the actress whose character's name is in the movie title.
This film, of course, is marketed as a family comedy where a stereotypically rebellious "bad" girl gets put in her place by her stereotypically strong-willed grandma.I sure was surprised when this turned out to be a rather serious drama about sexual abuse.
Garry Marshall did a wonderful job in the performances he elicited from the cast, especially Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan.
The story focuses on the unraveling relationship between mother Lilly and daughter Rachel, who have driven all the way from San Francisco to small-town Hull, Idaho where grandmother Georgia lives.
She does what she can with the role on both fronts, but her efforts never add up to a flesh-and-blood human being.At close to seventy, Jane Fonda looks great, even as weather-beaten as she is here, and has the star presence to get away with the cartoon-like dimensions of the flinty Georgia.
Cary Elwes plays on a familiar suspicious note as Lilly's husband, an unfortunate case where predictable casting appears to telegraph the movie's ending.There is also the omnipresent Dermot Mulroney in the morose triple-play role of the wounded widower, Lilly's former flame and Rachel's new boss as town veterinarian Dr. Simon Ward.
Transcending and unforgettable, Lohan definitely takes the cake as Rachel.The trailer was misleading, and what I expected was Lindsay to be playing another character too much like her ownself - however this movie surfaced the morals of family and trust.
While I can say my experience was not as bad as some of the experiences I have heard others have experienced, I would like to say that to truly understand this film and the actions taken by the character portrayed by Lindsay Lohan, you would have had to have been molested and/or sexually assaulted yourself.
The character Rachel behaved EXACTLY as you should expect a young woman who had been sexually abused as a child by a father or a father-figure to act.Rebelliousness and lying, drug abuse, promiscuousness, cynicism, using sex as way to show affection and control, the need to be just loved by a man without sex ...
I don't know why is it a comedy ;I don't recall laughing a lot during the movie.Lindsay Lohan had an amazing performance, and she really got into her role from the beginning to the end!
The story is good and not as predictable as these films usually are.Lindsay Lohan is Rachael, a temperamental, rich LA teenager sent by her struggling mother (Huffman) to a primarily Mormon town to stay with her estranged and rigid grandmother/drill sergeant, Georgia, played by Fonda.
I shouldn't have been, because the three leads, Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and Lindsay Lohan, are all talented actors with impressive resumes.
But there are also many really good moments, and some terrific acting by Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and especially, surprisingly, Lindsay Lohan.
In a way, I get irritated when I watch this movie, because I see how good Lindsay Lohan is, and how she has the potential for greatness - and how her personal life seems to be eclipsing her considerable talent.
She gives a terrific performance as well as the other two fine ladies of the cast, Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman.Yeah, it's not as emotional and as truthful to the serious topics in the film.
Yeah, this film is inconsistent at many times, but overall, Georgia Rule is a decent movie with some great performances..
As it is, Georgia Rule is a fairly hard-hitting family drama, and I thought it did a great job of showing both the flaws and strengths of three generations of women: Rachel (Lindsay Lohan, who is absolutely great, aside from the semi-valid criticism that she is basically playing herself), a bratty California sex-pot who's been hiding a traumatic secret in the interest of her mother's happiness; Lilly (Felicity Huffman, consistently strong), who clearly loves her daughter despite her struggles with alcoholism and guilt over her role in her daughter's troubles; and the eponymous Georgia (Jane Fonda, fantastic), a somewhat self-centered disciplinarian who honestly takes the interests of her family at heart.I think a lot of the poor reviews for this film are based on the fact that it simply is not a comedy (which I understand is how it was advertised).
Even the infamous blow-job scene is actually one of the saddest parts of the whole movie, as Lohan really expresses the pain of a teenager who has come to believe that her sexuality is the only part of her that is worthy of attention.The film itself is by no means Oscar-worthy, but it's not worthy of a Rotten Tomato either.
Compelling family drama-comedy, great acting by all three leading actresses (Felicity Huffman, Lindsey Lohan and Jane Fona), entertainment combined with depth.
While there are tons of movies that could be described by that tagline, Georgia Rule is perhaps the best representation of the "troubled teen at Granny's" genre.Perfectly cast Lindsay Lohan comes to stay at grandmother Jane Fonda's house for the summer.
Jane Fonda stars as Georgia, the tough as nails bad ass grandmother that will do just about anything for her daughter (Huffman) and granddaughter (Lindsay Lohan).
Felicity Huffman brings daughter Rachel (Lindsey Lohan) on a trip to Idaho to visit Grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda).
As a matter of fact, there are few moments of comedy in this serious depiction of a young woman in crisis brought about by generations of family dysfunction.Lindsay Lohan plays the young woman, Rachel, who is sent to spend the summer with her grandmother, Georgia, by her exasperated mother, Lilly.
Lohan is incredibly attractive and sexy, but she goes far below the surface to give us an insightful look at a confused young woman poised upon the edge of disaster.Rachel's mother, Lilly is at her wit's end as to how to deal with her daughter, so she takes her to spend her last summer before college with her no-nonsense grandmother from whom Lilly has been estranged for years.
Lilly is a person torn asunder by her daughter, her husband, her estranged mother, and her own addiction to alcohol, and Huffman offers a raw and shattering look into Lilly's life.As for Jane Fonda, - the object of my initial interest in the film - she is good, damn good, but, I think, somewhat miscast in her roll as Georgia.
I think that Jane Fonda's persona is just a bit too sophisticated for this part, but she is still a joy to watch in this roll of Georgia which is very reminiscent of her father's role of Norman in On Golden Pond.I would be remiss if I didn't mention the performances of the actors playing the three major male characters in the film.
Starring Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Garrett Hedlund, Cary Elwes & Hector Elizondo.
Originally appeared in LakewoodBuzz.com June, 2007.OVERVIEW:Rachel (Lohan) is a rebellious, sexually precocious California teen whose alcoholic mother, Lilly (Huffman), exiles her to Idaho to spend a precollege summer with her tea-totaling, rule-making grandmother, Georgia (Fonda).
"Georgia Rule" is clichéd and it's somewhat unbelievable, but Garry Marshall pulls off an effective drama nonetheless with the help of a truly talented cast.Backstory aside, Lindsay Lohan provides a decent performance as Rachel, a troubled teenage girl who has a history of drug/alcohol abuse and rebellious behavior.
(I'm talking about her character.) Felicity Huffman is Lily, her mother, who, on the verge of a mental breakdown from the stress of keeping up with Rachel, forces her daughter to stay in a remote Idaho town over the summer with her grandmother.Jane Fonda is the most entertaining presence in the film as Georgia, Lily's mother, who agrees to take Rachel in and hopefully get some sense into her.
The three actresses are a great match together and they play off one another well, and Lohan proves she still has talent, if only she could clean her act up off screen then maybe more people would take her films seriously..
She gives an interesting performance along with some funny lines!Jane Fonda made me laugh a few times with the things that she did.Felicity Huffman did a great job at playing Lohan's alcoholic mother, didn't get too many laughs out of her lines or actions..
I watched this movie, thinking it was going to be some teen-focused over dramatic film courtesy of Lindsay Lohan but shockingly, it was really well written and the acting was...fantastic.Jane Fonda was hilarious with her "No taking the lord's name in vain" even though you can still say "f*ck you" and her crazy bar of soap antics and threats to take a bat to Arnold (Cary Elwes) Lindsay Lohan was one of my greatest fears for this movie.
But surprisingly she delivered a great performance for the emotional scenes and kicks of humor thrown in.When first began watching the movie and saw how promiscuous Lohan was acting I thought "Oh great just some stupid movie for her to pimp herself out in." But as the story develops you realize that Rachel is the way she is for a reason and a damn good one at that.Another awesome performance is by Garrett Hedlund, a fairly new actor whose starred in quite a few major movie hits.
The character of Rachel (Lohan) is a very sexually aggressive person and it sort of reminds us of the real Lindsay so it takes away a lot from the film.I do however, think that if you put Lindsay aside, you will enjoy this film.
(I can appreciate the nuance of Polanski directing Dunaway in Chinatown, but not Marshall directing Lohan in Georgia Rule.)Nevertheless, I liked this movie, and I enjoyed watching it.
I expected very good performances by Jane Fonda and Felicity Hoffman but I was overwhelmed by what an excellent actress Lindsay Lohan is.
And in more than a couple situations Jane Fonda really did try her best to salvage this mess.What a terrible mess ms lindsay lohan created in this "thing on celluloid" (to call or in any way refer to "georgia rule" as a movie is to insult everyone in the movie industry - all the way back to the silent film era).
I really would have liked to see her character receive more exposure in this movie.I am surprised that Lohan and Huffman did not receive more acknowledgment for their dramatic roles..
I was shocked when I actually started enjoying it, and like a good novel, i couldn't wait until the end to see how it all "wrapped up." The story is far from a comedy; it's all about personal demons and how three women in a family deal with those demons.
The movie has charm and beauty, but its overwrought plot and strange mixture of melodrama and slapstick distracts from its grace.Lindsay Lohan, an actress who in many ways resembles the aforementioned uncle, plays Rachel, a wild child from California sent by her alcoholic mother (Felicity Huffman) to live with her grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda) in Utah.
And this is a predominantly feminine movie since female characters are here much more important than men's and very well performed by the three actresses with special prominence to Jane Fonda in one of the best roles of her career as the granddaughter who tries to impose strict rules to her ill behaved daughter and granddaughter.
What happens in this film is the examination of a severely dysfunctional family of women: Rachel (Lindsay Lohan) is an oversexed 17 year old tyrant whose alcoholic mother Lilly (Felicity Huffman) can no longer tolerate and ships her miscreant daughter off to the 'hell world' of Lilly's distant controlling mother Georgia (Jane Fonda) to shape Rachel up for college.
Rachel (Lindsay Lohan) is a mess and forced to stay with her grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda) in Idaho for the summer before college.
The director, Gary Marshall, is best known for lighter comedies.Jane Fonda plays her part well, but Lindsay Lohan's performance is questionable.
Cary Elwes is very good but, while his character is important to the plot, he isn't on the screen till the end and then not that much.Still, I was interested enough in the movie to see the whole film..
An spoiled, rude but bright young teenager Rachel (Lindsay Lohan) is forced to live with my grandmother Georgia (Oscar-Winner:Jane Fonda) for the summer.
This is a great drama with excellent actors, including Lindsay Lohan, who show us one of her biggest interpretations.The story is really good, about three generations of women and their relationship as a family, including an alcoholic mother and her daughter, who's abused by his father.
Yet, I went to see the movie because in one of the reviews I read it was about "child molestation".The movie is the story of three women  grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda), daughter Lilly (Felicity Hoffman) and granddaughter Rachael (Lindsay Lohan).
But as the story progressed, the character with such weirdness looked so real and acceptable.All the actresses acted well  Jane Fonda, Felicity Hoffman but this very talented Lindsay Lohan captures the show - all in all.
There is enough drama, emotion, comedy, and overall scenes of pure joy to make this a good movie.I'll start with Jane Fonda.
Yes, the ending is somewhat Hollywood happier than real life my be--but not in the way you might expect, and not without an understanding of many of the difficult underlying realities.Lindsay Lohan's performance in this movie blew me away.
I like Lindsay Lohan, but I don't remember thinking before this that she deserved an Academy Award.Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman also bring powerful performances to this movie.