I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's 1986. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his young daughter Rose (Camilla Belle) live in blissful isolation on a former island commune off the east coast. They defend ferociously the local wetland against land developer neighbor Marty Rance (Beau Bridges). He invites Kathleen (Catherine Keener) to live with them and she brings along her sons, Rodney (Ryan McDonald) and Thaddius (Paul Dano). Rose is immediately jealous and tries unsuccessfully to seduce Rodney. Red Berry (Jena Malone) arrives bringing candy for Rodney and sex for Thaddius.The opening act confused me with a seemingly disturbing Jack and Rose relationship. It doesn't help that Rose acts like a jealous lover. It turns into an interesting sexual coming-of-age story for Rose as she tries to seduce the new men in her life. Then the last act leaves Jack and Rose back as a weird awkward couple. It's slightly off-putting. The whole movie is filled with interesting performers and slightly off-putting. It's not fulfilling but it does have some interesting bits and pieces.

Rose lives all alone on an island with her ailing hippie father. She worships him and has incestuous feelings for him. He is still clinging to the dream that the island will remain a paradise away from the rigours of the modern world. However property developers are threatening to move in.It is refreshing to see a story of incest told from a female's perspective. However Rose remains unknowable throughout most of the movie - but then, in essence, so do the other characters, with vague and baffling dialogue. In the second half there are sudden developments that seem too convenient to do away with characters who leave the movie spread far too thin across the remaining characters and remaining runtime. The ending also seemed a bit too neat and tidy for the challenging issues the movie has raised.

You either love "The Ballad of Jack & Rose" or you hate it. I loved it, but I hated watching it the first time. Furthermore, I can understand why some people would heap praise on this quirky bit of avant-garde film-making while others would condemn it to oblivion. "The Ballad of Jack & Rose" is for serious movie lovers. You don't watch this film to relax and unwind. The story of the destruction of family is serious business despite some humorous interludes. Imagine watching a soap opera that could masquerade as social commentary about America after the 1960s. It is the kind of movie that would be terrific as the epilogue to class about the Hippie movement, Free Love, return to the wilderness, and it segues into the environmentalist movement. This movie is not suitable for children and if you cannot watch it in a single sitting, you are liable to feel like you are serving time just to get through its one hour and fifty-one minutes. The cast is extraordinary with Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis delivering a slam bang performance while Catherine Keener. Writer & director Rebecca Miller has helmed a film that is the American equivalent to an Ingmar Bergman film. Subtlety is the order of the day in "The Ballad of Jack & Rose." The characters are neither stereotype nor are they unrealistic. There are times, perhaps best described as uncomfortable, when lenser Ellen Kuras makes her camera such an integral part of the setting with the characters that you feel like you're eavesdropping on these two families and their troubles."The Ballad of Jack & Rose" takes place in the year 1986 on an island off the East Coast of the United States. Essentially, this is a soap opera about the theme of jealousy. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis of "My Left Foot") is a naturalized Scotsman who was once an engineer. Now, he is an ex-hippie turned environmentalist who sees no salvation in a future hard-wired by technology and growth has settled on this anonymous island where he lives now with his 16-year old daughter Rose (Camilla Belle of "Push") since his wife went away. Every quarter our protagonist leaves the island for the mainland and hooks up with Kathleen (Catherine Keener of "Living in Oblivion") to satisfy his sexual needs. Recently, Jack has learned that he has heart disease and he isn't getting around as agilely as he used to so he invites Kathleen and her two sons, Rodney (Ryan MacDonald of "Halloween: Resurrection") and Thaddius (Paul Dano of "The Girl Next Door") to join them.Aside from an occasional guest, such as Gray (Jason Lee of "Mallrats"), nobody visits the Slavins. Gray shows up to bring Rose her flowers, otherwise, Jack and Rose are left alone entirely to themselves. She doesn't want to share anybody with Jack. Indeed, when her father raises the subject of his imminent death, Rose notifies him that she plans to commit suicide after he dies because life won't be worth living without him. Of course, Rose's confession horrifies Jack. The only other interlopers on the island are the construction workers who are building a series of apartments for a land developer, Marty Rance (Beau Bridges of "Norma Rose") and Jack has a running feud with Marty.Meanwhile, matters reach a boil when Kathleen and her teenage sons arrive and set up house with them. Jack assures Rose that the presence of these outsiders is nothing more than an experiment. Reluctantly, Rose accepts them. Initially, nothing untoward occurs until Rose behaves like a voyeur and watches Jack and Kathleen hope in the sack for sex. As Jack and Kathleen have sex, Rose approaches Rodney with an invitation to have sex with her. Rose is a virgin. In fact, she has never been kissed and earlier she tried to persuade Gray to kiss her but he refused. Unfortunately, for Rose, she cannot seduce the paunchy Rodney who never removes his windbreaker jacket and has decided to become a hairstylist for women. Rodney agrees to cut her hair. Deliberately, she arms herself with a double-barrel shotgun and invades their privacy. When they pause to recognize her, she discharges the shotgun more out of shock than design. Indeed, Rose wants to share her father with nobody.Later, Rose has a tryst with Thaddius who is a diametrical opposite of his younger brother Rodney. They have sex in her room in her bed. The next day Jack sees the sheets waving in the breeze with a blood stain on it and the words "This is an experiment" with an arrow pointing at the blood stain. Of course, Jack is furious. Rose is still trying to get back at her father for having sex with Kathleen. In fact, she has stolen one of Thaddeus's cages to trap copperhead snakes and has put it under her bed. During her rendezvous with Thaddius, their bumping and grinding released the door to the cage and snake got out. Later, Kathleen freaks out when she sees the copperhead. Jack cannot find it. Jack has a showdown with Thaddius on the site of an old commune and they fight about his having sex with Rose. Jack knocks Thaddius out of a tree and breaks both legs and an arm. Kathleen takes her son back to the mainland, but before they leave, Thaddius tells her that Rose tried to kill her by releasing the snake in the house.Writer & director Rebecca Miller doesn't flinch at tackling uncomfortable themes. During one scene, Jack winds up being kissed by his daughter on the lips and he feels guilty. Eventually, Jack dies and Rose turns their house (they shun television) into a floral arrangement and sets it on fire while she curls up next to her death father. Just when you think that she is going to die with her dad, she breaks out and goes off on her own to make a life.

The Ballad of jack and Rose follows the story of an isolated father and daughter searching to define their relationship.Jack is a father who has raised his daughter on a former hippie commune located on a small island. They have very little contact with anyone else except for an occasional friend or two. Jack discovers he is dieing and also comes to the realization that he and his daughter need aid in their current life, him because of his health and his daughter Rose in learning to deal with life with out him. Jack visits the main land and invites Kathleen and her two sons to live with them to aid in these things.Roses quickly feels threatened by Kathleen and proceeds to behave in disturbing and unhealthy ways to show her protest. Rose makes a pass at Kathleen's oldest son who turns her down, she keeps a copperhead to use to scare Kathleen, fires a gun into Jack and Kathleen's room, and eventually loses her virginity to Kathleen's youngest son, just to name a few. Eventually Roses actions lead to her being assaulted by Kathleen's youngest son in front of Jack causing a fight between Jack and the boy in which Jack gets beat due to his poor health. Rose comes to defend jack pushing the boy out a window injuring him badly. Kathleen has enough and leaves Jack and Rose alone.As Jack nears death he and Rose share a strange moment in which they have a sensual kiss prompting Jack to cry out for forgiveness. Jack soon dies but not before he makes Rose promise to live. Rose burns down their house and leaves for whatever.This film is sad and horrible romancing for poor parenting and a disturbing girl. Jack is an obvious failure as a father preferring to be a friend or even flirt with his daughter instead of a parent. In fact Jack's actions are selfish and possessive preventing his daughter from growing into a health individual. His realization that Rose may have issues comes to little to late condemning her to a life of self seeking destruction as we see in the film.The true sadness of this film is not in the place the writer obviously wants it to be but in the fact that the writer actually seems to think there is some sort of romantic quality to the horrid parenting of Jack which creates a disturbed teenager with no visible means of creating a healthy future for her.I have been working with teens for nearly ten years now and I have seen how the selfishness of parents in attempts to keep their kids to themselves can create many problems for those teens. Jack is not a loving parent who has a unique relationship with his daughter, he is a man who's selfish desire to isolate himself and his daughter damages her as a person. I have seen it many times and Roses future is not something free or romantic but one in which she will be an easy target for exploitation thanks to her father.This film is a how not to with regards to raising kids.