Although it may be faint praise to say it, Black Snake Moan is better than I thought it was going to be. Considering it was written and directed by Craig Brewer (the man behind the pretty weak and borderline racist Hustle & Flow) and concerns a nymphomaniac being chained to a radiator by a dude named Lazarus (who, gasp, comes back to “life” over the course of the film), you’d think it would be pretty much the silliest film ever. But it isn’t, I swear.
I say that even though Brewer and everyone involved in this film did no research whatsoever about nymphomania. Not that I did either but I highly doubt that nymphomania manifests itself as an unscratchable itch that prompts those suffering from it to tear off their clothing and tackle the nearest male (as Christina Ricci does in this film). And I say that even though Ricci wears $200 Citizens of Humanity cut-offs but can’t afford to buy herself dinner.
What’s good about the film is that it so completely believes in its lunatic concept that, for a while (at least until an overmatched Justin Timberlake enters the picture), the audience is caught up in it. It gets the down home, good ol’ boy feel of the Deep South just right and its early characterizations are dead on. This carries the film across the somewhat ludicrous idea that someone could cure another of their “wickedness” by chaining them to a radiator. You just kind of go with it.
The problem comes after the “wickedness” has been cured and Ricci’s boyfriend (played by the aforementioned Mr. Timberlake) returns from Iraq, or more accurately, the boot camp he was kicked out of for the anxiety he gets when confronted with loud noises. Never minding the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that a person would get debilitating anxiety from loud noises and then want to enlist in the Army, the last thing the film needs is another person with some deep-seated mental hurdle to clear. It already has Samuel L. Jackson’s scarred and wounded Lazarus and Ricci’s crazed nymphomaniac.
So, in the third act of the film, we’ve now got that to deal with. And quite frankly, JT is not up to the job. Yes, his role is weak and a lot of what he’s called on to do is silly, but so is what Ricci and Jackson are asked to do and the audience buys into their roles. Timberlake just isn’t able to make us buy into his affliction the way the film needs us to.
I don’t want to lay the blame for this film’s failures at the feet of Justin Timberlake; it’s not his film to carry after all. And maybe the failure of the third act isn’t his fault at all. Maybe there’s just no way a ridiculous film like this could end up satisfactorily. But whatever the reason, the simple fact is that the whole film collapses like a house of cards in its last half hour. It has a completely unearned uplifting ending in which every character is happily paired off with another as if, no matter the damage and pain you cause, if you repent you’ll find happiness. It’s a very Christian message and a bizarrely conservative one coming from a film that toys with hardcore sexual depravity and the darkest anxiety.
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