''Wildflowers'' is a 1999

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Melissa Painter and starring

Clea DuVall Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall (born September 25, 1977) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She is known for her appearances in the films ''The Faculty'' (1998), '' She's All That''; '' But I'm a Cheerleader''; ''Girl, Interrup ...

Daryl Hannah Daryl Christine Hannah (born December 3, 1960) is an American actress and environmental activist. She made her screen debut in Brian De Palma's supernatural horror film '' The Fury'' (1978). She has starred in various movies across the years, i ...

Tomas Arana Tomas Clifford Arana (born April 3, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in the films ''The Hunt for Red October'' (1990), '' The Bodyguard'' (1992), ''L.A. Confidential'' (1997), ''Gladiator'' (2000), ''The Bourne Supremac ...

and

Eric Roberts Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with a leading role in '' King of the Gypsies'' (1978) for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He was nominated again at the Golden Globes ...

. It features former

United States Poet Laureate The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the official poet of the United States. During their term, the poet laureate seeks to raise the national cons ...

Robert Hass Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection ''Time and Materials: Poems 1997 ...

reading some of his own poetry. Filmed in San Francisco and Marin County, California, it was given a limited theatrical release and received a mixed reception from critics.

Premise

Clea DuVall stars as Cally, a 17-year-old who has been raised by her father, not knowing her mother. When Cally meets a mysterious woman called Sabine, she becomes obsessed with her.

Cast

as Cally *

as Sabine *

as Wade, Cally's Father *

as Jacob, Sabine's Lover * Richard Hillman as Graham * Eric Yetter as Dylan *

as "Poet" *

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often ...

as Teacher *

Sheila Tousey Sheila May Tousey (born June 4, 1959) is a Native American actress. Biography Born in Keshena, Wisconsin in 1959, Tousey is a stage and film actress of Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee descent. She was raised on both Menominee and Stockbridge ...

as Martha *

Irene Bedard Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an American actress, who has played mostly lead Native American roles in a variety of films. She is perhaps best known for the role of Suzy Song in the 1998 film '' Smoke Signals'', an adaptation of a Sherma ...

as Ruby * James Burnett as The Tailor * David Graham as "Trip" *

Alan Gelfant Alan Gelfant (born May 21, 1957) is an American film actor. Life and career Gelfant was born in Syracuse, New York. He has acted in more than 50 plays and dozens of TV shows and movies, including leading roles in the films ''Next Stop Wonderland ...

as Wolf * David Wike as Gahad * Scott Benton as Oliver

Distribution

''Wildflowers'' premiered at the

1999 Cannes Film Festival The 52nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 12 to 23 May 1999. Canadian filmmaker, actor and author David Cronenberg was the Jury President. The Palme d'Or went to the French– Belgian film ''Rosetta'' by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The festi ...

. It was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 1, 2000. In the US it grossed $5,365.

Reception

At the 2000

SXSW Film Festival South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...

, Melissa Painter won the SXSW Competition Award for best Narrative Feature. Review website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gave ''Wildflowers'' a rating of 57% based on seven reviews.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gave it a "generally negative" rating of 28% based on seven reviews. In a review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', A. O. Scott called the film dreamy and impressionistic, but ultimately empty. He praised Clea DuVall for her "intuitive grasp of emotion". Writing for ''

The Austin Chronicle ''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...

'', Barry Johnson called the film poignant. He praised Painter for her "lyrical, intimate direction" and DuVall for her "impressive, nuanced performance".

Christopher Null Christopher Null is an American writer, film critic, and columnist. A former blogger for Yahoo! Tech, he was the editor of Drinkhacker.com, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Filmcritic.com, which operated from 1995 to 2012. In 2003, CNN cal ...

called the film bizarre and incomprehensible, "utterly hopeless as cinema".

References

External links

* * {{Amg movie, 198549, Wildflowers 1999 films 1999 drama films American drama films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films 1999 LGBT-related films American LGBT-related films