Jessica Chastain Has a Warning About Her New Heroine
Nashville has a missing singer and an aunt who might make a bad situation worse. In Heartland, Jessica Chastain plays Misty Jones, a former country star returning to find her niece. Chastain describes someone who can be tender one moment and shoot out windows the next. She sounds like excellent company for a thriller, if hazardous company for anybody in it.
The film reaches Netflix on November 13. Chastain's Tudum interview makes one promise worth holding it to:
An abrasive heroine can be a pleasure. She can also be a shortcut: give her a gun and a painful history, then call her complicated. We want Misty's temper to cause trouble she cannot charm or shoot her way out of. That would give the search some friction beyond the next suspect.
Chastain's enthusiasm makes this worth a look. A woman searching for a missing relative has something urgent to do; stopping to win everybody's approval would be exhausting to watch. The risk is that the film treats everything she does as justified because we are meant to be on her side. Let her be wrong occasionally. Let someone else have a point.
Director Shana Feste has put that search inside a country-music story, and Chastain does her own singing. Misty has already had a public life, with an audience's expectations attached. Watching her return to it could be as interesting as discovering who knows what about the disappearance.
For the wait, choose George & Tammy, where Chastain plays Tammy Wynette, or The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Both also put her voice to work. Our pick is the series if the country setting draws you to Heartland; the film fits an evening when you cannot commit to a series.
Then try Heartland on November 13. We are rooting for Misty to be difficult in ways the story cannot conveniently excuse. Chastain has made that prospect sound fun.
