Stars: Kevin Costner, Joe Morton, Ron Rifkin, Linda Hunt and Kathy Bates.
Directed by: Tom Shadyac.
Synopsis:
I was interested to see what this film was going to be like as I had heard that it `wasn’t a bad flick’. for a Kevin Costner movie. Costner is not an actor that I’m extremely fond of at the best of times, and I think that he’s quite well known for his, well, boring performances. There is something lacking in the presence of Costner on-screen and it seems that he quite often chooses roles, which suit this infamous trait.
Dragonfly is the story of a man whose wife is killed in a tragic accident while she is working in some third world southern American country. Costner plays Joe Darrow, who thinks that his wife is trying to contact him from the `other side’. There are various devices used throughout the film to make us believe that this is the case. The cheapest of which, is the use of the children to convey his late wife’s `message’. It seems that since the success of the Sixth Sense, every man and his dog thinks if there’s any supernatural theme in a film its always good to chuck in a couple of spooky kids for good measure. This tactic however, did not win me over and I found my self groaning as soon as Kev’ was heading for the children’s ward.
There’s also a running theme, as the title suggests, of dragonflies. We discover that this was his wife’s favourite `animal’, and has various dragonfly items through their house, which are a constant reminder of her death to the distraught Joe Darrow. (There’s even one scene involving hundreds of dragonflies that was cut from the film and is viewable in the extras).
Kathy Bates also plays a supporting role as Mrs. Belmont, Joe’s neighbour. I am a fan of Bates, and I’m somewhat disappointed that she took this role, she does an excellent job of carrying off a part, which does not have much responsibility beyond that of consoling Joe, and the films device for us discovering all of Joe’s thought’s on what is happening around him through the film.
Overall:
Dragonfly makes a good attempt at portraying a person who is HAVING a hard time accepting the death of a loved one. While everyone around him pushes for him to take time out to grieve and move on, Joe seems content to throw himself into his work, most likely avoiding an empty house and facing the fact that his wife is truly gone.
Dragonfly could have been a lot better, but it followed a pretty standard Hollywood formula of, `horrible accident’, `spooky noises at night’, `freaky kids saying weird stuff’, and of course an ending which is totally expected.
Extras:
Extras included on this DVD include:
Spotlight on Location
Deleted Scenes
Betty Eadie Segment
Audio Commentary.
I mostly flicked through the extras - the Betty Eadie segment is an interview with a woman on near-death experiences, Spotlight on Location is a look behind the scenes of the film, and the
Audio Commentary is a standard directors commentary.
I did watch all of the deleted scenes and it’s quite obvious, bleedingly so with some of them, why they were removed. There was a GROUP of scenes which ran with this theme of “is he awake?. or is he sleeping?”, that ended up being a bit annoying by the fourth time so thankfully they were deleted. Among these was a scene where hundreds of Dragonfly’s are bouncing of the lounge windows, to the point where it shatters, and then he wakes up.