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It’s very rare that I feel my senses have been offended.  Let’s face it.  I have to sit through movies from The Wayans Brothers, Rob Schneider and Jamie Kennedy on a regular basis, and, if that doesn’t drive you mad, nothing can.  However, Georgia Rule comes off as heinous to me because it takes a horribly serious and painful subject then tries to surround it with a bad parody of Hee Haw.

Lindsay Lohan stars as Rachel – a wild child 18-year old from San Francisco dumped on the Idaho doorstep of her grandmother, Georgia (Jane Fonda).  Mother Lilly (Felicity Huffman) doesn’t know how to deal with a daughter who won’t stop lying about drugs, drinking, partying and more, so it’s up to Georgia to try to settle the girl down.    

Will Rachel still find big city trouble in a small, rural town?  What is the secret she is about to reveal that will rock the family to its core? 

Georgia Rule feels like a movie struggling to figure out what it is, and director Garry Marshall, who I usually love, fails to define the movie.  Georgia Rule tries to be wacky, funny and silly in the beginning, which makes the dramatic turn all that more shocking, jarring and out of place as the earth shattering truth is uttered.  Worse yet, Marshall tries to go back to the funny, wacky feeling after the movie has taken the dramatic turn, which is more offensive to my sensibilities than I can stomach.  Georgia Rule’s tone consistently is off, out of place and cliché all at the same time as we wildly go from the funny into the dramatic back into the wacky without building and easing between the two. 

Then, Marshall and writer Mark Andrus refuse to let it go.  We are taken through twists and turns, wonder if Rachel is telling the truth, then we are taken back to rehash it all over again when the movie should be done.  We get a decent examination of the relationship between Rachel and her boss, Simon (Dermot Mulroney), but also must suffer through a subplot about the hot young boy Rachel has set her sights on, and the grandmother/mother/daughter relationship triangle that is supposed to be a Mother’s Day gift to women everywhere, but comes off as trite and tired.       

Maybe Georgia Rule could have been slightly palatable if it wasn’t for Lohan.  Once a future superstar with potential to be one of the greats, Lohan is flailing about in Georgia Rule attempting to be precocious, flirty, sexy and desirous when you look at her and question how someone could be so orange, and have such an unnaturally raspy, husky voice.  It’s just hard to look at her on the screen and not think of all the crazy stories about her possible night time antics, or the infamous scolding she received from Morgan Creek CEO James G. Robinson (the studio that made Georgia Rule).  Worse yet, she puts in a stiff, forced performance with small moments of hope, but not enough to make you want to see her next movie. 

Sadly, Fonda is used like window dressing as her role diminishes to that of bystander and momentary comic relief as Georgia Rule gets more serious and could have used her immense talents.  She’s stuck with dreadful dialogue calling for her to spit out the homespun wisdom that constitutes Georgia Rules.  You can imagine someone would put these little witticisms in a small paperback book to hand out for Mother’s Day, and her scenes contribute to Andrus and Marshall’s dated outlook that this Idaho town is some sort of clichéd Americana where all of the simple town folk are salt of the earth, quirky characters who have town barbecues complete with cherry, peach and apple pie every single week.  Norman Rockwell paintings are more in touch with modern middle America than this movie. 

If you want to see a movie like Georgia Rule that is more realistic, entertaining and compelling, check out Waitress when it comes to your town over the next few weeks, or when it shows up on DVD later in 2007. 

-1 Waffle (Out Of 4)   

Georgia Rule is rated R for sexual content and some language. 

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