American Woman review: Sienna Miller completely steals the show in this bleak domestic drama
15 cert, 109 min. Dir: Jake Scott. Staring: Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Paul, Amy Madigan, Will Sasso, Sky Ferreira
Sienna Miller as a 32-year-old grandma? Tot up two consecutive teenage pregnancies in one Pennsylvanian family, and the maths works. In American Woman, she is Debra Callahan, a firecracker of a single mother forced to raise her grandson all by herself, after her 17-year-old daughter Bridget (Sky Ferreira) steps out one night and never comes back.
Miller has played too many barely-present wives, in the likes of Foxcatcher and American Sniper, to resist grabbing this role and shaking it like a laden Christmas tree. The film spans 15 years or so in Debra’s life, as her grandson grows up and his mother’s vanishing remains an unresolved tragedy.
Desperate for money, Debra gets trapped in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend called Ray (Pat Healy), and then married to Chris (Aaron Paul), a more promising candidate. All the while, her relationships with her sister (Christina Hendricks) and mum (Amy Madigan), who live across the street, involve a believable push-pull of love and infuriation, flaring up with every beer swigged.
As a showcase for Miller, the film is capacious almost to a fault – there’s a risk of it following the one-damn-thing-after-another pattern of melodrama while Debra’s life lurches from one phase to the next. But it manages to avoid feeling like a grim tract by keeping a certain buoyancy.
The script by Brad Inglesby (Out of the Furnace) could have been directed with a grimacing, sledgehammer fatalism, but Jake Scott and his cast look sharp: Hendricks, Will Sasso as her dependable husband Terry, and the reliably subtle Madigan all help build a portrait of family pulling through the tough times, fleshing out their roles as they flinch with each new burst of acrimony.
It’s Miller’s show, though, and she was never going to cede this one to anyone else. If you’ve seen her on stage in American plays, you’ll recognise the way she attacks then recedes, a front-loaded bravado as she bites down hungrily on scene after scene. But it’s her quieter moments that really get to you here, and you may not be prepared for her tender gestures and teary catharsis when Bridget’s story is put to bed. American Woman seems to be nudging its way above decent almost from the start, and just keeps nudging: while the inspiration to put it over the top is never quite there, the consistent effort is gratifying.