Tumbleweeds

Before earning an Oscar nomination, British actress Janet McTeer won a Golden Globe for her performance in writer/director Gavin O'Connors' latest film (which also won him an award at Sundance last year). She plays Mary Jo Walker, a North Carolina serial wife whose residential history reads like your retired traveling grandparents' collection of state refrigerator-magnets. Her quest for a fifth husband and flight from the latest failed relationship sees her driving cross-country via the scenic route seeking romantic nirvana.

All of which mightn't be so bad if she weren't also responsible for Ava (child TV actress Kimberly Brown), a budding teen daughter who's tired of "securing an escape route" every time Mom shacks up. After seeing a travel ad for San Diego in Better Homes & Gardens, Ava demands they try the West Coast for a change, where Mary Jo promptly secures a hardworking but edgy Marlboro Man-ish trucker (played by O'Connors), and it's business as usual.

Other than McTeer's excellent accent, which is much more authentic than most non-Southern American actors seem to be able to manage (maybe that shouldn't be surprising; after all, until 150-200 years ago, when proper English culture decided to distance itself from the upstart independents, Brits and Southerners sounded a lot alike), everything about Tumbleweeds is rather unremarkable for a movie getting so much attention. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but nothing that good either; a pedestrian script (co-written by O'Connors) and direction make it look more like your average Lifetime flick -- or even a high school play, in which all the players seem to be waiting after each line and gesture for the audience to laugh -- than something worthy of golden naked-guy statues. C

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