| In
Saving Grace the plot takes a nice twist when Grace (Brenda Blethyn)
decides to grow marijuana in order to “save the family farm,” so to speak,
when her husband commits suicide to avoid the consequences of his romantic
and financial indiscretions. She comes upon this idea through her
gardener Matthew (Ferguson, who American audiences will recognize from
“The Drew Carey Show”). Apparently Grace is a master gardener and
Matthew presses her into service to save his ailing pot plant—grown for
personal consumption only, of course. The town of Cornwall looks
the other way as Grace, not so gracefully, proceeds to grow a bumper crop
of reefer, as she holds her creditors at bay. Then the problem of
selling in bulk, and quickly, raises its ugly head. Unfortunately,
not as much thought went into the selling aspect of the pot (or plot),
as did into the growing of the pot (or plot), and the same can be said
of the plot (or pot). The movie really takes a fanciful turn when
Grace hooks up with a drug lord to move her sizable crop. All of
a sudden, the drug lord is in love with her, and we are led to believe
that she makes money writing a book in lieu of selling marijuana.
I kept waiting for Grace to wake up. Maybe she got really high, fell
asleep, and the ending of the movie is really her guilty conscience having
a dream. That would be my suggestion. Up until the last act,
the influence of marijuana was portrayed in a believable manner, i.e. laughing,
giggling, munchies, spacing out, etc.; however, at the end, people are
running around naked and acting like reefer madness struck with a vengeance.
In addition to the weakness of the ending, this overselling of pot’s mind-altering
effects puts Saving Grace a stoner’s throw away from a three star
video to a two. |
