"How did if feel to pull me out?" Sadie scornfully asks her sister after interrupting a drunken performance. "If felt like a thousand pounds of dead weight, Sadie."Sadie (exquisitely played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) is, throughout most of the movie, an anchor chained to Georgia. The movie begins with Sadie making a trip to stay with Georgia for an undetermined amount of time. During this time, Sadie picks up gigs and finds a lover. All of the things she does seem to be distractions for Sadie because she can't come to terms with the fact that she may not be the best singer.Sadie's presence is a black hole, she is someone that shares her misery with those surrounding her. She may not even realize this, that her attitude is not enthusiastic, but rather chaotic and detrimental. Even trying to be seemingly positive, Sadie winds up asking questions that bring up bad memories for her and Georgia.If there's any complaints I have, it's that we don't see many effects of Sadie unto the people around her. However, maybe this is for the best. Since the story is told through Sadie's point of view, it is interesting to see at least some effects of her behavior without having them fully realized.

'Georgia' is a strong, sometimes harrowing drama about the relationship between two singing siblings: the eponymous elder sister, an established country-folk star, and the less talented Sadie, who is actually the central character of this film. Jennifer Jason Leigh is in her element as the self-destructive, self-loathing Sadie, and delivers perhaps her finest performance; but Mare Willingham is also good in the subtler role of Georgia, a woman whose capacity to feel compassion has been tested to the limit, and which only survives when focused through a prism of superiority. Georgia is instinctively careful with words but Sadie compulsively goads her into betraying these instincts; the telling dialogues between them are constructed with a deadly precision, the high points of a generally excellent screenplay. What's also surprising is that the music is also good. In any film about art, a central problem for the director is creating a belief in the merits of the fictional work; in 'La Bellie Noiseuse', for example, Jean-Jacques Rivette created an explicit plot justification for not having to show the painting that is the film's centrepiece to his viewers, rather than letting us judge it. By contrast, in this film, Georgia sounds genuinely good, while Sadie veers between downright awful and almost interesting; this allows the film to actually use the music as a means of conveying the narrative of the story. This slows the pace of the film, and if you don't like the types of music played, might be excruciating; but it's interesting to see the (fictional) truth conveyed through the medium of performance.One of the film's strengths is that it grants us no indulgent fantasies; because of this, the narrative arc is limited (especially as the film is quite long). In some senses, the film resembles other great films about the self-destructive, like 'Five Easy Pieces' or 'Naked'. It's not quite in that class, but it's double-headed structure makes it more reflective, less visceral, but by no means uninteresting. Overall, it's an unjustly neglected work.

Its probably not like the greatest film ever made but for those who 'get' the country vibe, not the cornball stuff but the real rootsy kind of textures and colors of a good Hank Williams record, this film is a keeper. There are some amazingly cool covers of some Velvet Underground stuff by the main character's band that I was rather shocked to hear, as I am a huge fan. They really had the whole Cowboy Junkies vibe down pat....Leigh is an amazing actress who has portrayed many dark and troubled characters throughout her career (almost exclusively). Here the tradition continues....Good soundtrack does not a great film make, but to me the characters were compelling enough to hold my interest (and I'm a tough customer). It kind of reminds me a bit of the LA-indie extravaganza Sugartown, an ensemble piece about many intertwining music & entertainment biz loonies, which is a bit more comic but certainly as dark.

This film presents a fairly accurate portrayal of the chaotic, symbiotic environment of the bar band music scene. If you are looking for a coherent, one-two-three plot and are expecting realism at the same time, forget it. You would be missing the point. Having "been there" and "done that", I can affirm that this movie does a pretty good job at portraying interesting and realistic snapshot views of people in this particular music genre. In addition, this film even goes so far as to attempt realistic discriminations between different types of musicians (e.g., between ones who want to just succeed, ones who just want to play, ones who can't get their lives together enough to make it, starving artists, etc.).This film initially may seem innocuous and even simplistic to some casual viewers. I must admit that I didn't get much the first time I casually viewed it. "Georgia" is very layered and textural -- the more you stand back and look, the more you can almost reach out and touch it -- but, as with most true art -- one must stand back and really take a look at it to appreciate the many layers. The layers of this particular artwork is done via multiple, sometimes concurrent, relationships, which intermittently share the foreground and the background with some really great music and various elements of the music scene. There is the relationship between Georgia and Sadie -- of course, the most obvious relationship that maintains precedence, but if you spend too much time on this one, you will miss so much. There is the Sadie-Axel layer; the Sadie-Georgia's husband layer; the Sadie-Herman layer; the Sadie-and the music layer; the Sadie-Sadie layer; the Sadie-drugs layer; the Sadie-father layer; on and on. All these relationships involving Jennifer J.L's character puts a lot of pressure on J.J.L, and I think she brings it about beautifully. I don't find her "overacting" in any scene -- the only "overacting" that is done is done by Sadie, not by J.J.L.J.J.L. has rarely disappointed me in her character portrayals. I have always found her an interesting sort of actress: she does not have that obvious physical "stand out" star quality about her, but more of a quiet, well-played character actress, genuine star quality about her. I think she, along with the other actors in this movie, did a terrific job with very difficult material (about a very unusual and difficult, but interesting, lifestyle), and this movie calls out to me to watch it every time it plays on my satellite service.This movie should not be judged along with "standards". It is a rare piece of filmwork, and should be judged entirely on its own standalone merits.