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Dual Personalities

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 05/19/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Peacock"



Dual Personalities



Amos Lassen



For some reason, "Peacock" never made it to the big screen and instead was released direct to video. The main focus of the film is on a character, John Skillpa (Cillian Murphy) who works in a bank in Peacock, Nebraska in the 1950's. He has issues with his mother who died recently and he had been the victim of much abuse from her. Now he dresses as a woman and he has created a new personality and goes by the name of Emma. No one knew about Emma until a train derailed and ended in his backyard. When neighbors come over, they discover Emma and think that she is John's wife. The train incident becomes fodder for the upcoming election and of course this makes things difficult for John as he must now appear as two different people. But that is not all. John's mom forced John to have sex with the town tramp, Ellen Page, who gave birth to a son, John, who seems to be losing his grasp on reality.

Emma takes it all in stride and comes up with a plan to end all of the craziness. The plot is dark and psychological and it deals with the alter ego. Murphy is excellent as Emma and as John but he soars as Emma. For a movie of this kind, it goes in all directions and makes clear that that can happen when a mother mistreats a child. It is Cillian Murphy who saves this movie that could have easily become a mess. Instead I see it as a serious work rife with thoughts and emotions. The story moves slowly, but surely, and we find that the action is actually in our own minds. I have read some really poor reviews of "Peacock" and to me that does not matter. I found it insightful and interesting and for a period piece it is exceptionally well done. With a cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Keith Carradine and Bill Pullman, there is not much chance that this film could become boring. I have read several negative reviews but I cannot agree with any of them. I liked this film.

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The life of a split personality in a small town is suddenly

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 06/10/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"We see a woman busy doing her chores one morning, the last of which is to make a sandwich and leave a note on top of it. Then she goes into the bedroom, takes off the wig she is wearing, and the next thing we know we are watching John get dressed for work. "Peacock" might be a title meant to symbolize the main character played by Cillian Murphy, but it turns out to be the name of the town in which John Skillpa and his alter-ego Emma are living their quiet but divided life. It turns out that John is a momma's boy raised by a not so nice mother. She always took care of him and in the wake of her death "Emma" arrived to take momma's place. The arrangement works quite nicely. John goes off to his dull job in the basement of the town bank, eats the lunch Emma made for him, and dutifully picks up things at the store as instructed by her note. Everything is working fine, and then one day, as Emma is hanging up the laundry, a caboose from a passing train ends up in the front yard. To say that things will never be the same again for John and Emma is a gross understatement. Neighbors meeting Emma assume she is John's wife, the owner of the bank (Keith Carradine) is running for mayor and sends his wife (Susan Sarandon) to set up an event on John's front lawn, and then there is Maggie (Ellen Page), a call girl who Emma learns had been receiving money from John's mother. Curiouser and curiouser.



I checked out "Peacock" because it had Ellen Page in it, and after "Hard Candy," "An American Crime," and "Juno," I am interested in seeing anything she happens to be doing. I had never heard of the movie before it showed up in our local Redbox, because for some reason it never received a general release despite the notable cast (which also includes Bill Pullman and Josh Lucas), and when I poked around to find out more about the film I found several suggestions that "Peacock" is a horror film, a label that I do not really find appropriate, despite what the obvious allusions to "Psycho" might suggest. Director Michael Lander, who also co-wrote the film with Ryan O Roy, calls it "an internalized psychological horror film," and that is certainly on the mark. John wants his life back, while Emma is finding that she might actually have a life. The question at the core of this 2010 film is what John and Emma are going to do about each other. As the film's tag line puts it, "If only he knew what she was doing." Your feeling is that things are going to end badly, but you want to hold on to hope because John has clearly been victimized by his dead mommy dearest.



As you would suspect, Murphy makes a decent enough looking woman, but there are times when you find it hard to believe that nobody in town picks up on the fact she is a he. That being said, the plight of his characters is enough to find yourself caught up in his quickly deteriorating situation. The story is set in rural Nebraska in the 1950s, when quirky neighbors were more readily accepted and the idea of a local transvestite would never occur to anyone, even if they had been to the big city (which would have been Lincoln). "Peacock" is an interesting little film, where you will find yourself curious to see how it plays out. The special features on the CD consist of four brief deleted scenes, a 20-minute featurette about making the film, and an alternative ending. As a general rule I abhor alternative endings because I like filmmakers to have the courage of their convictions for the story they are telling (Imagine alternative endings for "Gone With the Wind" or "Casablanca" and try not to throw up), and I have to say in this case the seeing the other ending only confirms my feeling for the original conclusion because I liked the way things played out with all the attendant irony. The alternative ending is arguably more ambiguous, but with this particular narrative letting things play out to a conclusion that is no less tragic hits the right final note for me."