• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Towleroad
  • Towleroad on Social Media
  • Privacy Policy

Towleroad Gay News

Gay Blog Towleroad: More than gay news | gay men

  • Travel
  • Sports
  • Law/Justice
  • Celebrities
  • Republicans
  • Madonna
  • Books
  • Men
  • Trans Rights
  • Royals
  • Monkeypox
  • Sophia Bush’s girlfriend ‘proud’ the actress has opened up about coming out as queer
  • Mel B declares she’ll ‘always be open’ when it comes to her sexuality!
  • Megan Thee Stallion being sued for ‘forcing cameraman watch her having lesbian sex!’

The Glass Castle: Weekend Movie Review

Nathaniel Rogers August 13, 2017 Leave a Comment

Brie Larson just can't with her homeless parents in THE GLASS CASTLE

‘This would be easier to take on the page.' That thought kept striking me from odd angles all during the new movie THE GLASS CASTLE  now playing nationwide. In 2005 the writer Jeanette Walls turned the rags of her childhood into adult riches with her memoir “The Glass Castle.”  The book won several awards and sold millions of copies. It was translated into dozens of languages. The big screen, however, has a tricky vocabulary and grammar all its own.

The Glass Castle flashes back-and-forth between adult Jeanette Walls (Brie Larson), a gossip columnist ashamed of her oft-homeless parents (Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts), and her memories of her difficult nomadic childhood. The Glass Castle's early sequences play out a bit like a B-grade Captain Fantastic (the fine Viggo Mortensen film about a similarly large off-the-grid family) but it isn't long before the somewhat whimsical tone of many scenes becomes troubling given how much of this non-comformist parenting plays like child abuse. 

Tiny little Jeanette (Chandler Head, wonderfully affecting) is hospitalized from burns from cooking alone and handed a real knife by her father to help her feel safer afterwards (!!!) claiming that it will protect her from demons. Eventually the family settles down albeit in their own peculiar unsettled way in a house with no electricity or running water.

The film's series of abuses become more literal via the introduction of a miserable grandmother (dependable character actress Robin Bartlett) who may or may not have sexually abused Jeanette's father. Late in Jeanette's teenage years Brie Larson joins the flashbacks to take over from the child actors who've been playing her; with each jump in age she (and, by extension, the audience) gets justifiably angrier.

Highlights from Brie's career: United States of Tara, Short Term 12, Rampart, Room

It's always tough for actors to follow-up an Oscar performance. Brie Larson's 2017 hasn't been all that spectacular (see also: Kong Skull Island and Free Fire) but it's easy to see why The Glass Castle was an attractive option for her first leading role post-statue. The actress has proven herself especially adept at navigating the fault lines within families and troubled homes. She was inarguably charismatic as the adventurous teen dealing with her mother's multiple personalities in the Showtime series The United States of Tara (2009-2011). She proved she could carry a film with the terrific foster-home drama Short Term 12 (2013) in which her character helped shelter kids who'd suffered emotional and sexual abuse. After that breakthrough she won the Oscar for Room (2015) as a young mother who'd been kidnapped as a teenager and was struggling to raise her own child in a tiny shed.

In short Jeanette Walls is already a perfect ‘Brie Larson Role' on paper. What's more it gives Larson a second combat round with Woody Harrelson as her estranged screen father; they previously worked this tetchy dynamic to surprising effect in the little-seen cop drama Rampart (2011). Larson does fine work showing the cracks in Jeanette Walls glamorous adult self. She's big-city charming but there's a barely perceptible twang in her voice and the composure is so stiff it's obviously its own emotional armor. Even before the flashbacks, Larson clues us in that this is a woman whose lived her whole life in utter chaos and is always guarded as a result.

That innate chemistry and skill of Larson & Harrelson are a boon to the movie but don't quite solve its central problem. It's all very tricky material to navigate. Watt's artist mother never comes into focus and Harrelson is trapped within the movie's contradictions.

Woody Harrelson is an irresponsible neglectful father… dispensing wise advice?

Writer/director Destin Cretton (Short Term 12) gives Harrelson's father the opening voiceover but that's movie language for centering you within a film's point of view. Cretton's humanistic impulse is (admirably) towards healing but this film's final redemption is too typically movie-full and thus cleansing. The father's bullying ways may be questioned vocally within the movie — particularly in the teenage sequences — but his spirit lingers even once Jeanette has moved on, and not malevolently. Child abuse is a serious demon that can't be so easily exorcized. The Glass Castle makes the shattering mistake of both romanticizing and condemning it.

Topics: Film/TV/Stream, towleroad More Posts About: Brie Larson, Film, memoir, Naomi Watts, Nathaniel Rogers, Woody Harrelson

Related Posts
  • Liz Hurley defends lesbian sex scene in new movie that was directed by her son
  • ‘Oppenheimer’ sweeps up at Oscars
  • Woody Harrelson declares it’s ‘very much true’ he is Matthew McConaughey’s brother
  • Mel B declares she’ll ‘always be open’ when it comes to her sexuality!

    Mel B declares she’ll ‘always be open’ when it comes to her sexuality!

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Mel B will “always be open” when it comes to her sexuality. The Spice Girls singer, 48, who reunited with her bandmates including the group's ex-singer Victoria Beckham for the fashion …Read More »
  • Megan Thee Stallion being sued for ‘forcing cameraman watch her having lesbian sex!’

    Megan Thee Stallion being sued for ‘forcing cameraman watch her having lesbian sex!’

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Megan Thee Stallion is being sued for allegedly creating a hostile work environment and forcing her cameraman to watch her having lesbian sex. The 29-year-old ‘Savage' rapper faces the salacious claims …Read More »
  • Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett recalls the moment his life ‘changed forever’

    Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett recalls the moment his life ‘changed forever’

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Jonathan Bennett's life was “changed forever” by his role in ‘Mean Girls'. The 42-year-old actor starred as heartthrob Aaron Samuels in the 2004 cult classic – which followed Lindsay Lohan, Rachel …Read More »
  • Sir Elton John sent Lance Bass gift basket to celebrate coming out

    Sir Elton John sent Lance Bass gift basket to celebrate coming out

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Sir Elton John sent Lance Bass a gift basket after he came out as gay. The 44-year-old NSYNC star revealed the legendary singer showed his support when Lance decided to reveal …Read More »
Previous Post: « Violent Racist, Homophobic Pro-Trump Neo-Nazis Chant ‘F**k You Faggots’ at Mass Rally; ‘State of Emergency’ in VA: WATCH
Next Post: Who is the Charlottesville Car Ramming Suspect? »

Primary Sidebar

Most Recent

  • Sophia Bush’s girlfriend ‘proud’ the actress has opened up about coming out as queer

    Sophia Bush’s girlfriend ‘proud’ the actress has opened up about coming out as queer

  • Mel B declares she’ll ‘always be open’ when it comes to her sexuality!

    Mel B declares she’ll ‘always be open’ when it comes to her sexuality!

  • Megan Thee Stallion being sued for ‘forcing cameraman watch her having lesbian sex!’

    Megan Thee Stallion being sued for ‘forcing cameraman watch her having lesbian sex!’

  • Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett recalls the moment his life ‘changed forever’

    Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett recalls the moment his life ‘changed forever’

  • Sir Elton John sent Lance Bass gift basket to celebrate coming out

    Sir Elton John sent Lance Bass gift basket to celebrate coming out

  • Relationship status influences heterosexual women’s sexual prejudice towards lesbians

    Relationship status influences heterosexual women’s sexual prejudice towards lesbians

  • JoJo Siwa had a challenge transitioning to new grown-up image

    JoJo Siwa had a challenge transitioning to new grown-up image

  • Liz Hurley defends lesbian sex scene in new movie that was directed by her son

    Liz Hurley defends lesbian sex scene in new movie that was directed by her son

Partner Links

  • Five Years Ago Today, George Floyd Was Murdered
    May 25, 2020 is a dark day in the history of […]
  • Mike Johnson Says He 'Hasn't Even Heard About' Trump's Unethical Crypto Dinner
    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) downplayed President Donald Trump's "private" dinner […]
  • Trump FDA Commissioner Complains About 'Throwing Insulin" To People With Diabetes
    Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary argued that insulin […]
  • C&L's Late Night Music Club With ROSÉ - 'On The Ground'
    I was looking for something newish and I found Blackpink's ROSÉ […]
  • Cher on 60 years of fame, making music, movies, writing her memoir and giving back
    Pop icon, movie star and conservationist Cher’s career spans an incredible […]

Most Commented

Social

Twitter @tlrd | Facebook | Instagram @tlrd

About

  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Towleroad
  • Towleroad on Social Media
  • Privacy Policy
[towleroadmr] [towleroadtn]

Footer

Ptown Hacks 2018

Read

  • Travel
  • Film
  • Law – LGBT Rights
  • Columns
  • Specials

About

  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Towleroad
  • Towleroad on Social Media
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · Log in

×
×