Barefoot (2014 film)

Barefoot is a 2014 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Andrew Fleming and distributed by Roadside Attractions. It was written by Stephen Zotnowski and is technically a "remake" of the 2005 German film Barfuss despite the fact that "Barfuss" was itself based on Zotnowski's original story and screenplay "Barefoot". Its story follows Jay, the son of a wealthy family who meets Daisy, a psychiatric patient who was raised in isolation, as he takes her home for his brother's wedding. It stars Evan Rachel Wood, Scott Speedman, Treat Williams, Kate Burton and J. K. Simmons.
The film was produced by WhiteFlame Productions and premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 2, 2014, before receiving a limited release on February 21, 2014. It grossed $11,767 during its opening weekend and $15,071 worldwide. It received negative reviews and has an 18% approval rating based on 22 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Jay Wheeler, the "black sheep" son of a rich family, works as a janitor at a Los Angeles, California psychiatric hospital as part of his probation. One night, he overhears another janitor, Frakel, telling a patient that he's a doctor in order to rape her. Jay knocks him out and tells the patient, Daisy Kensington, to go back to bed.
Daisy, having been admitted to the hospital after being raised in isolation and barefoot all her life, follows Jay. Rather than send her back, he brings her home for his brother's wedding in New Orleans, Louisiana to convince his family that he has straightened out his life. While Daisy impresses them, she also admits to Jay that she was in the hospital for killing her mother.
Jay's father, suspecting that something is amiss, presses her for information, causing Daisy to have a panic attack. Jay gets her into a cab, and tells them the truth, only having come home to get money to pay back a loan shark. Jay and Daisy return to his parents' house, and set out back home in an RV.
Despite the fact that they are both being hunted; they enjoy each other's company. They pull over so he can sleep and, during the night, Daisy wakes him up when a cop pulls up. While Jay hides in the cupboard, she tells the cop that her boyfriend, "Beaver", ran away when he saw the flashing lights. Telling her that his father's name was Beaver, he proceeds to check the RV. While he leaves to search in the bushes on the side of the road for "Beaver", Daisy uses the distraction to throw away the keys to his car, so that she and Jay can escape.
Later, when they make a stop, Jay phones Dr. Bertleman, the doctor who was handling Daisy. When she overhears him saying that he is taking her back to Los Angeles to the psychiatric hospital, she runs away to the RV alone. Attempting to drive away before Jay can get to her, Daisy crashes the RV instead. As Jay opens the door, she climbs out crying, as other people come to check on them.
Jay, curious about Daisy, not truly believing she's schizophrenic as her doctor believes, asks her about whether the voices told her to kill her mother. Daisy tells him that it wasn't her who heard voices, but her mother. Her mother was screaming one night but Daisy didn't go to her, and when she woke up in the morning her mother was dead, causing her to believe she killed her mother. A group of police cars show up, detaining Daisy and arresting Jay.
Jay's mother convinces her husband to bail Jay out. When he returns to his apartment, his belongings have been torn apart as the loan shark comes to collect his debt. Jay flees to the psychiatric hospital to see Daisy, but the security and Dr. Bertleman tell him to leave.
Desperate, Jay goes to the train station, lying down on the tracks so that he'll be deemed suicidal and taken to the psychiatric hospital. Dr. Bertleman, knowing it was just a ruse, dismisses Jay. When he insists that he is suicidal, the doctor puts him in solitary confinement. While at the hospital, another patient gives Jay information on Daisy's well-being and confirms that they're being kept apart.
Frakel sneaks the loan shark's goon into the hospital, where he then strangles Jay using a chain. As Jay is struggling to get him off, the patient who was giving him information takes out the goon by hitting him in the head with a broom.
After this Jay wakes up in the hospital, where Dr. Bertleman apologizes to him about Frakel and tells him he was right about Daisy's mother, who was schizophrenic. The doctor then decides to release them both from the hospital. Jay receives a letter from his father, containing a $40,000 check to pay off his debts. He then meets Daisy at the hospital entrance, where they reconcile before leaving together.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 18% of 22 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Caution when walking Barefoot: This all-too-disturbing attempt at levity painfully stumbles thanks to an oblivious cast." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 22 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
Barbara VanDenburgh of the Arizona Republic rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and called the film an "offensively infantilizing [...] spectacularly wrong-headed, chemistry-free romance, and too dumb to know how sexist it is" and calling Evan Rachel Wood's character "a cartoon character" similar to the Little Mermaid who "all but brushes her hair with a fork".