Jayne Mansfield’s Car is about a British and an American family gathering together to mourn its matriarch in her home state, Alabama, in the summer of 1969. The American family consists of a patriarch played by Robert Duvall, his three adult sons, one daughter in law, his adult daughter, two grandsons, two granddaughters and one son in law. The British family includes a patriarch played by John Hurt, his adult son and adult daughter. The superficial overarching question is whether these families will explode upon meeting or find common ground with amusing culture clashes to provide humor. The real theme of Jayne Mansfield’s Car is intergenerational conflict created by war and masculine gender norms. Billy Bob Thornton wrote, directed and stars as one of the sons.
Jayne Mansfield’s Car has a phenomenal cast. I’ll watch Duvall and Thornton in anything, and I have a soft spot for Robert Patrick, who plays one of the American sons, Jimbo, and deserves a better resume, but Kevin Bacon steals the show as one of the American sons who was a WWII vet turned hippie and black sheep of the family. He bought and perfected all the ways of becoming a man, discovered how empty this achievement was then rejects it wholesale and gently and oddly encourages his son to learn from his mistakes. He acts as the family’s conscience and provides instruction that is definitive, but not condemning. He manages to be the black sheep of the family while accepting the family as they are and encouraging them to do better. Even though others call his character a cliché, I disagree since his performance is delivered without bitterness or anger, just regret, concern and honest statements of how he was hurt without trying to inflict pain. His final scene depicts the most emotionally powerful moment in the film. It was a revelation that a WWII vet could become a hippie.
Thornton’s character is less well defined. Initially I thought that his character had a mental disability, but was unclear whether it resulted from WWII or if he was born with it. Nope, he is just eccentric and possibly shell-shocked. Occasionally his character morphs into Thornton’s personality. It was uncharacteristically one of Thornton’s weaker performances though it did work with the overarching theme of the story.
Ray Stevenson, as the British son, finally got to show his range. I’m so used to seeing him as the bruiser in the Thor franchise, the Resident Evil version of The Three Musketeers and HBO series Rome that it was startling to see him play the stereotypical well-mannered British man, a gentle giant. After Bacon, his story was the most interesting because his character united the superficial story of cultures clashing and the overarching theme of intergenerational conflict. Stevenson’s performance accomplished Thornton’s goal for his character without the involvement of the make-up department and paired with Hurt, their father and son dynamic are a perfect foil for Bacon and Duvall’s father and son dynamic, which seems ideal in comparison. Unfortunately it made me question why the matriarch would choose to spend her remaining years with such a similarly toxic mix.
Jayne Mansfield’s Car has the bones for a good movie in it, but the actual result is unwieldy, crowded and incoherent. It is a terrifying, but brilliant idea to show how each generation shares the experience of being wounded by war (WWI for the patriarchs, WWII for the sons and the Vietnam War for the grandsons), but instead of sharing each other’s pain, it further divides them. There is a psychological exile created by war and surviving death.
Jayne Mansfield’s Car (hopefully) unintentional overarching lesson is that men can only connect to each other over women’s bodies, preferably dead. The intimacy with the women does not usually bring the men closer to the women. There are five women who unwittingly provide this service: the matriarch of both families, whom we never see, the titular movie star, who is only present through her alleged car, Donna, the only woman who was born into the Alabama family, who gets a raw deal and I’m still angry for her, Camilla, the only woman who was born into the British family and participates in the strangest masturbation scene depicted in celluloid, and Vicky, Jimbo’s wife, who probably is the only one who gets a good deal out of the unknown arrangement.
Donna is the most interesting woman and consciously tries to unite the family. She accurately assesses the men’s bluster, “And daddies are daddies. They’re always yelling and saying shit,” but in the end, her character gets short-changed and is the only one who gets a brief opportunity to show how much it hurts whereas the other women are either not present to consent, are delighted to consent to being objectified or in Vicky’s case, is getting something out of it because it is just another day in her life and probably the least uptight day in her life since she doesn’t care that she is suddenly making out with her husband in the living room with her entire family as bystanders, which seemed uncharacteristic and random given everything that we know about that couple. If forced to guess why they decided to let their hair down that night, it is probably out of celebration that despite being miserable, uptight box checkers, they are happier than everyone else in the room and have nothing fundamentally wrong with them that loosening up can’t fix. Even though Jimbo cosigns most of society’s rules, he is no fool, but a happy hypocrite. His son will not be carrying on the tradition of fighting in war, just everything else that he sees as beneficial.
When I watched Jayne Mansfield’s Car, I started the weekend with The Wilde Wedding. I began the weekend with a wedding and proceeded to a funeral, which was accidentally appropriate, but these movies share a common thread that I have seen in many movies. If movies reflect society, then some white people need to scale back on using drugs to get through large family gatherings and momentous life turning points, but more importantly, stop drugging people without their consent. At least in Thornton’s film, the potential danger of doing this is depicted, but the overall result is the same-the person has an emotional epiphany and is able to get closer to someone that he loves. Please stop doing this in films. The results in real life are rarely this positive.
Jayne Mansfield’s Car starts off by amusingly poking fun at life in Alabama, but becomes a mournful film devoted to exploring the psychological intergenerational divide created by war while failing to diagnose this cause. The lack of full emotional palette just increases anger and results in a romanticism of tragedy that needs to be punctured by confronting reality, which somehow can only be accomplished by using women. The film has a lot of intriguing parts, but fails to add up. Give it a chance, but enter the experience with measured expectations.