| | | Nothing is More Savage Than High Society.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, English, Subtitled, Spanish, Dolby Digital (5.1)
Contrasting the mores of high society with the blunt savagery of primitive tribes, Fierce People takes an inside look at the upper classes, examining the darkness that lurks beneath the surface of good manners. Sporting a biting wit, and featuring charismatic performances from Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland, this unflinching drama exposes the trappings of wealth and privilege, and their overwhelming power to both seduce and corrupt.
"...a masterpiece." John Black, Boston Now
"This film hits all the bases..." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Spellbinding. Intriguingly twisted..." Scott Hoffman, MoviePictureFilm.com
Editor's Note
Sixteen-year-old Finn Earl (Anton Yelchin) is supposed to spend the summer in the Amazon, helping his anthropologist father, whom he's never met, study the (fictional) Ishkanani tribe. But instead of getting a passport, he gets busted for buying coke for his addict mother, Liz (Diane Lane), and takes the rap himself. So Finn goes off on a very different kind of adventure instead: spending the summer at the massive New Jersey estate of the wealthy and powerful Ogden C. Osborne (Donald Sutherland), one of his mother's massage clients. While his mother fights to remain sober there, Finn falls in with Osborne's spoiled-rotten grandchildren, including Bryce (Chris Evans) and Maya (Kristen Stewart); the latter takes an immediate romantic interest in him. Despite the fun Finn's having--getting involved in drinking, smoking pot, and experimenting for the first time with sex--he identifies more with the maid, Jilly (Paz de la Huerta), than with the rich kids. And when he gets taken under Osborne's wing, danger lurks as family secrets start rising to the surface. Griffin Dunne directs FIERCE PEOPLE with a firm hand, mixing in scenes from Finn's father's documentaries that evoke what is happening within the Osborne tribe itself. The ensemble cast also includes Elizabeth Perkins as Osborne's snobby daughter, Christopher Shyer as a doctor who quickly develops a thing for Liz, and Garry Chalk as the blowhard McCallum. Based on the book by Dirk Wittenborn, who also wrote the screenplay and appears in the film as Fox Blanchard, FIERCE PEOPLE is a bittersweet look at classism in the United States, set in 1980 but relevant to the separation between the rich and the poor in any era.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital Stereo | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Lions Gate |
| Release Date: 9/9/2008 |
| Running Time: 107 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 19637 | | UPC: 00031398196372 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | ReelViews 8 of 10
Fierce People starts out as a satire-tinged, jocular drama that undergoes a jarring shift in tone to the dark side. While the film successfully makes light of such subjects as drug addiction and coma victims during its first half, the event that occurs around the mid-point is so grim that Dirk Wittenborn's screenplay simply closes down the humor and lets the film progress in a more sober fashion. In a way, it's a shame, because Fierce People is a lot of fun during its first hour; the final 45 minutes aren't as enjoyable...With this role, Diane Lane has graduated from love interest and leading lady to "mother." Despite having top billing, this is a supporting role and her romantic subplot is as tepid and forgettable as they come...The story for Fierce People relies a little too much on plot contrivances, but that doesn't become apparent until after the end credits have rolled. The film is worthwhile primarily for the fun, breezy first hour. After that, it's a case of watching to find out how things turn out. Director Griffin Dunne obviously has a liking for movies that combine light and dark - his directorial debut was the sometimes uncomfortable Meg Ryan/Matthew Broderick rom-com, Addicted to Love - but his handling of the dramatic tone shifts in Fierce People is a little unsure. Overall, it's an enjoyable effort, but not a positive triumph. - James Berardinelli
Reel.com 5 of 10
Shallow and hackneyed, this coming-of-age narrative/would-be social satire about a lower middle-class teenager spending a pivotal summer among rich blue bloods is a dull trudge through overly familiar literary territory that has all the depth and bite of a fawning Town and Country profile of America's old money families...Drawing the class distinctions between Finn and the Osborne social set with all the subtlety of a brick through a window, Fierce People feels like it's been clumsily stitched together with little regard for tone or dramatic credibility, i.e. Lane's cokehead mother gets sober in a flash. Stock characters abound, from Perkins' brittle, disaffected socialite (a dry run for her role in Weeds) to the retarded Osborne cousin who only exists to be the deus ex machine for the narrative's baldly contrived and melodramatic denouement. Nor does Fierce People provide any fresh insight into the social order and etiquette of the rich (Wittenborn is no Edith Wharton or F. Scott Fitzgerald). The analogies drawn between the Ishkanani and the Osborne social circle come off as insufferably precious, rather than thoughtful. Whether it's old or new, don't waste your money on Fierce People. - Tim Knight
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