Films of the decade: The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Several of the decade’s most beguiling cinematic risk-takers flew well under the radar. Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, warmly received in its native Britain, has yet to cross the Atlantic, although the writer-director’s perceptive gaze at a mature woman’s summertime fancy toward a young hedonist has “art-house hit!” stamped all over its passport. Other expectation-defying films were openly jeered (Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, Woody Allen’s Anything Else) or were held captive by archaic copyright laws (Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues).

But of all the masterworks denied their rightful place in the noonday sun of mainstream recognition, the one dearest to me is Rebecca Miller’s The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

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