This 'Snake' anything but plain
Jackson, Ricci shine in this disturbing yet well-told coming-of-age tale
By Phil Villarreal
Pvillarreal@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.01.2007
"Black Snake Moan" excels at being awful. A ragged, crusty old sock of a film, it has you rolling your eyes, shaking your head, gawking and giggling in all the right moments.
And all the right moments are so, so wrong.
Take, for instance, broken-down deadbeat Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) telling a neighborhood boy about his first sexual experience — which happened to be with his second cousin. Or local nymphomaniac Rae (Christina Ricci) engaging in dirty, random sex only moments after her man (Justin Timberlake) has shipped off for military service, having begged her to stay true. That's the film's oddly effective idea of comedy.
Writer/director Craig Brewer, fresh off probing the world of street pimping in "Hustle & Flow" (2005), turns to a Deep South neighborhood ravaged by drugs, alcoholism and poverty. The blues fill the air. People party in the streets, play tackle football in their skivvies and make love under the moonlight. A man goes after his wife-stealing brother with a broken beer bottle.
Just as in his last film, Brewer exploits an exaggerated, oh-so-pulpy environment. His characters are so trashy, Jerry Springer would turn up his nose.
Brewer starts with the parallel stories of Lazarus, dumped by his wife in favor of his brother, and Rae, who's stricken with "the sickness," which causes her to erupt into erotic convulsions.
Rae knows nearly every man she meets wants to have sex with her, so she cuts through all the pretenses and gives them what they want. She lives fast, crashes hard and associates with all the wrong people.
Lazarus discovers Rae beaten unconscious and left for dead in his front yard. He's in an Old Testament, tough-love mood, and takes to nursing Rae back to health and chasing away her sickness. In his twisted, beaten mind, he figures chaining her like a dog should do the trick.
Believe it or not, all this is the setup for a sweet surrogate-father-daughter coming-of-age film.
You can despise Brewer for his choice of subject material — so far he's taken sympathetic looks at a pimp and a disturbed old man who incarcerates a young nymph — but not his abilities as a storyteller. He has an eye and ear for luscious detail, and his nonsensical, drawling dialogue flows from Jackson's mouth like angelic poetry. Not since "Pulp Fiction" has Jackson found a script with such a perfect match to his combustible persona.
Ricci, so strong while hidden under Charlize Theron's shadow in "Monster," is able to sell a character so ridiculous she could only have sprung from depraved fantasy. Owl-eyed and gaunt, she's a walking, talking cadaver who twists her fears and inadequacies into outrageous insatiability. Brewer accompanies Rae's "spells" with quick-cut flashbacks in which she visualizes the ways she's been abused and violated in the past.
Combined with a heart-rending confrontation with her mother, this leads you to believe Rae's disposition is a visceral survival mechanism. Lazarus, who certainly has his own issues to work out, seems to be an oddly kindred soul. He feels Rae's pain and knows how to work it out. Deep inside, Rae seems to realize this. Even though she's disgusted with everything that's going on, she remains under Lazarus' care, out of fascination if nothing else.
"Black Snake Moan" generates much the same relationship with the audience.
