The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Aging hippie Jack (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his teenage daughter, Rose (Camilla Belle), live happily alone off the Atlantic coast. A little too happily perhaps—she resents anything that threatens to come between them, and he, with a failing heart, knows he must prepare her for life without him. The film is written and directed by Rebecca Miller, daughter of the late playwright Arthur Miller, and she seems to have inherited her father’s penchant for overstatement and conspicuous symbolism. Characters—like Jack’s girlfriend, Kathleen (Catherine Keener)—are kept around while Miller wrings the last drop of meaning out of them, and then they’re hustled offstage. Day-Lewis’ vivid performance pulls the movie to life, despite Miller’s pedantic tendency to underline the significance of every little detail of her script.