Georgia (1995)

Rating: C+

Dir: Ulu Grosbard
Star: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mare Winningham, Ted Levine, Max Perlich

Actually, Sadie would be a more appropriate title, since of the two sisters in this story, she gets more screen time than Georgia. Not surprising, perhaps, when Sadie is played by Leigh, and her mother wrote the script… Leigh, a wannabe rock-star of dubious talent and a fondness for pharmaceuticals, lives in the shadow of her sibling (Winningham – either singing or giving a very good impression), a successful C&W star. Their relationship is the key to the film: in the hands of less convincing actors, there probably wouldn’t be much here – you get to the end and, really, little has changed. Fortunately, Leigh & Winningham add intensity and depth, although the former playing an emotional quadriplegic is scarcely breaking new ground! Nonetheless, it ends up a fairly convincing portrayal of what happens when ties of blood get tested by the force of hurricane-strength mental and physical storms.