Love & Fate . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

Love & Fate

DIRECTED BY: Kenneth Jones

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

Love & Fate takes place in a backwoods, pastoral South whose edenic setting unfortunately refuses to rub off on the rest of the film. Better Minds Home of Rest, the film's central locale, is a cozy place, the kind of mental institution in which Claudia lovingly passes out pills and willingly tells her boss she can work a double shift if needed, which is odd since she's actually a patient and not the nurse she believes she is. Her status as such causes problems for her blossoming relationship with Isaiah, who reluctantly places his aging father at Better Minds, his father's hallucinations the result of being unable to save Isaiah's sister from drowning. Isaiah is virulently opposed to "crazy people" and the idea that his father might be one. Since for all of their courtship Isaiah doesn't know that Claudia is a patient, he is understandably upset at having to take her back to "work" by 9pm each night and at having to conduct the majority of their relationship in front of the other six patients. There's an evident, tight bond among the cast, but even that doesn't produce convincing acting from the majority of the actors. This mars the wonderful ideas that are lurking but just don't surface in Love & Fate, an unreservedly sappy first feature from writer, director, and producer Kenneth Jones.

--Claiborne Smith

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