It's Hard Out Here For A Nymph: Black Snake Moan Review
When I heard there was a movie coming out about a black man who chains a nymphomaniac white girl to a radiator to save her from herself, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to see Black Snake Moan, by Craig Brewer, the same writer/director who gave us Hustle & Flow last year. Brewer brings us another portrait of the dirty South filled with characters who must piece together their battered lives in the hopes of finding better ones.
Playing the town slut Rae, Christina Ricci channels Britney Spears at her barefoot, Cheeto-munching, dirty-blonde best. The movie starts off with a banging as she and her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) screw their brains out. They’re in love, and she begs him not to leave for the military. But once Ronnie is shipped off, Rae hooks up with a drug dealer, a football player, then gets beaten and left for dead by Ronnie’s cousin.
Enter Samuel L. Jackson as Lazarus, a farmer with a heart of gold whose wife has run off with his brother. It’s the South and he’s got the blues. Lazarus finds the bloody, half-naked Rae face down on a dirt road and decides that God has put her in his path for a reason. He takes her in and puts a chain around her waist to cure her “wickedness.”
If you’re looking for highbrow entertainment, this isn’t it – nor was that Brewer’s intention. Reflecting the movie’s salacious posters, Black Snake Moan is pulp. A B-movie. It’s Southern Gothic gone Grindhouse -- melodramatic and over-the-top. It’s Ricci in her underwear for most of the movie. Or even better, it's Ricci topless. So when Rae wakes up and discovers the chain padlocked to her waist, the pluck of a blues guitar on the soundtrack is there to punctuate the finding. “Why you got me chained?” says Rae fearfully. Almost as though she’s doing an impression of Gary Coleman’s catchphrase, “Wutchoo talkin’ bout, Willis?”
As Brewer did with Hustle & Flow, music is a driving force in this film. The director knows how to use song to propel the plot along. Not only does Lazarus find strength and salvation in singing the blues, but he also connects with Rae through its redemptive power. Instruments jangle and twang on the score while the odd couple sorts out their issues. Without the down-and-out grooves, the film would be a really racy Lifetime movie.
Brewer’s directing has tinges of Elia Kazan and Black Snake Moan harkens greatly to Kazan’s lurid Baby Doll. Like Kazan, Brewer has an ability to make audiences feel for his greatly flawed characters. The acting is emotionally charged, gritty and raw, complemented by Amelia Vincent’s cinematography, which showcases widescreen composition that works fittingly for repeated shots of Ricci lying down or Lazarus holding a guitar in his arms.
Jackson does what he usually does, his character preaches and rants -- but with a bit more subtlety and tenderness than other recent roles. The songs he performs are old blues standards, like the title song "Black Snake Moan," and his vocals are mediocre (I couldn’t help but think, let Timberlake sing one). Ricci doesn’t hold anything back. She screams and hollers. She writhes and squirms like a dog in heat.
Halfway through the film, good ole’ Laz realizes he can’t control someone’s life and the chain comes off. Once the chain that was the most interesting dynamic of the film disappears, so does most of the film’s unconventional appeal.