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Come Early Morning review
:. Director: Joey Lauren Adams
:. Starring: Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Donovan
:. Running Time: 1:37
:. Year: 2006
:. Country: USA
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In Come Early Morning, Ashley Judd is Lucy, a beautiful and washed up woman, a lost soul in some remote Kansas town, who gets drunk in bars and picks up losers for the night. With no self-esteem and an obvious taste for self-destruction, Lucy seems to have lost any hope in men, somewhat the result of the estranged relationship she has with her father. A glimpse at happiness will come with Cal (Jeffrey Donovan), a decent man who seems to show real interest in her, but will she be strong enough to overcome her demons?
First-time director Joey Lauren Adams (Amy of Chasing Amy's fame) has crafted an honest and heartfelt look at the lives of women in middle America. Never condescending or overdramatic, her film aims at showing how despair can become the result of a hopeless environment and unhappy upbringing. While she never tries to find any excuses for her main character, she clearly denounces macho southern culture.
Mostly a work on realism and emotion, this vignette about the condition of Woman in Middle America isn't any breakthrough moment of contemporary cinema and probably would have passed unnoticed if it weren't for the performance of Ashley Judd, truly incandescent onscreen. Her interpretation is subdued, the actress looking like a fading flower without however overdoing it with that kind of "watch me I deserve an Oscar" look so many actors and actresses exhibit in these types of destructive roles.
Sometimes the combination of a simple story and basic ingredients manage to reach the audience deeper than they expected and this is certainly what happens with Come Early Morning, a small film but a humble achievement.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Movie Reviews: from 2012 to present
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