Provinces of Night

Fleming Bloodworth (Reece Thompson) is desperate to leave his small town life. His uncle Warren (Val Kilmer) is a wild man with Hazel (Hilarie Burton) in his car. He's too drunk to drive. He pushes underage Fleming to drive him and passed out Hazel to Louise Halfacre (Sheila Kelley). This leads to a drunken fight between Hazel and Louise. The good part is that Fleming connects with Louise's daughter Raven Lee Halfacre (Hilary Duff). His grandfather E. F. Bloodworth (Kris Kristofferson) returns after 40 years on the road as a traveling singer. He had abandoned his wife (Frances Conroy) and his 3 sons. The Bloodworth men are all broken and bitter.

The problem seems to be that the characters are all random wild southern screw ups. The script is a mess of characters going every which way. Things happen that I'm uncertain about. A pig shows up in the middle for some reason. I'm fine with Reece Thompson but Hilary Duff leaves me with concerns. She has this bubbly personality that can't be restraint but her character needs to be darker. Her mother is such a mess that it has to show up in her performance. At first glance, the problem basically boils down to director Shane Dax Taylor in his second movie and screenwriter W. Earl Brown on his first film script. The inexperience really shows.