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With an intense, talented and celebrated father like Arthur Miller, it's easy to draw parallels with writer/director Rebecca Miller's own paternal bond and the mythologised one in her engrossing but patchy screenplay. But whatever her relationship with Pa, Miller certainly shares Dad's preoccupation with the disappointment and sorrow suffered when fierce idealism clashes with reality. And she can certainly write complex, fascinating characters.
Like Death Of A Salesman's Willie Loman, Jack is a blinkered, uncompromising zealot with a romanticised view of his child and lifestyle, who butts heads with anyone representing reality. A mass of contradictions, he ennobles himself by taking pot-shots at builders working on encroaching housing projects, but thinks nothing of buying the affections of a woman via a cheque from his considerable trust fund. He expects sensitivity towards the ecology yet shows little for his daughter - isolating her from everything but him. And in the film's most bittersweet scene, he confronts a fat-cat housing developer (Beau Bridges) only to discover a shared humanity.
Like belligerent teen Rose, this lyrical ballad shows flashes of greatness but is also prone to melodrama and self-importance.
