Rebecca Miller’s The Ballad of Jack & Rose would deserve notice for its setting if for nothing else, though its typical of Miller’s frustrating reluctance to commit herself fully to a rewarding realism that we’re not exactly sure what that setting is.

     The so-far underpopulated island where the action occurs is “somewhere off the east coast,” a hint that is so general as to be practically useless in pinpointing a socially or geographically recognizable location.  The explanation for this lack of specificity, I imagine, must be that the writer-director wants the characters as individuals to take precedence over the influence of social environment, an argument I personally find naïve.  On the other hand, it may simply be that Miller couldn’t find, after scouring the eastern seaboard, an offshore location that provided the combination of population and realty that fit her dramatic vision – which to my mind argues for an alteration of vision.  But it’s her movie, not mine, and the fact that this vagueness of location stuck in my mind like a sharp stone in a shoe shouldn’t undermine the rare achievements of a good film.

     What seems to be about half the island is the sight of an abandoned commune, now inhabited by its last adherent, Scottish émigré Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his 16-year-old daughter Rose (Camille Belle).  Jack has remained as loyal to his long-lost commune’s ethos as to its land, and still practices an ecological lifestyle, living in a very homey-looking dwelling that is half-cabin, half bunker that is built into the side of a hillock.  Other similar structures dot the landscape, some used by Jack for storage, others closed for good.

     The rest of the island has come under the control of a developer, Marty Rance (Beau Bridges), who is building just about the kind of homes you’d expect.  Flinty, principled Jack is as outraged as you’d expect and, as the film opens, takes advantage of a slip-up by Rance’s contractors – they start building over their property line on a wetlands – to fire a couple of shotgun rounds over their heads.

     This is the background for Jack’s real problem, which is his encroaching mortality, brought on by the ultimate failings of a weakened heart.  He has kept Rose close to his body and soul her whole life, imbuing her with his principles, but realizes with alarm that he’s been too successful; she tells him that when he dies, she will die, too.  Not quite sure what to do, he goes to the mainland and invites a sometime lover, Kathleen (Catherine Keener) to move into his island home along with her two teenage sons, Rodney (Ryan McDonald) and Thaddius [sic] (Paul Dano).  This man who has lived so apart from people for so long thinks that, if he introduces another adult into the situation he’s forged with his daughter, Rose will somehow, if not blossom, that reach out to the rest of the world enough to see she shouldn’t quit it when her father does.

     This is good rich soil and Miller has planted some sturdy characters in it.  The pleasures of The Ballad of Jack & Rose (horrible title, isn’t it?) are simply watching the hidden aspects of Jack, Rose, Kathleen, her kids, and sundry others reveal themselves in mutual support and antagonism.  Naturally, there’s immediate antagonism between Rose and Kathleen as Jack would have known if he hadn’t shut himself off from the world for so many years.

     That a man could be as willfully isolated as Jack might have strained credulity but for Miller’s subtle denotations and Day-Lewis’s performance.  Jack’s stubbornness is sheathed is a gentle manner though, like many otherwise introspective people, he’s incapable of seeing himself as others see him.  Miller’s depiction of unbreaking obstinacy is particularly telling; because of it Jack assumes a tragic proportion since, because when he does break, he’s helpless.  Jack is so capable of love, though, that he’s always attractive on some level, while the film’s absolute refusal to court grandiosity makes it equally so.  Miller’s essential optimism emerges in her depictions of compromise, which she sees not as a betrayal of principle, but as a perpetuation of it.

     The Ballad of Jack & Rose is shot on video, which sounds, at first, like a strange choice for a movie set on a mostly undeveloped island.  We’re used to seeing such land- and seascapes depicted as picturesque fields of green and blue-gray, with people either swallowed up and turned statuesque as a result.  But Miller uses the lightweight, portable video equipment to stay close to Jack, Rose and their visitors, creating an atmosphere of appropriate atmosphere.  She doesn’t relinquish the prerogative of composing her images as if she were shooting in film, which tends to give the movie a muddy look overall, though that isn’t a bad strategy for many of the interiors.

     So much for the good – of which there’s plenty, maybe even plenty more than Miller herself has imagined.  Too much of the movie unfolds on a symbolic or metaphorical plane, which not only creates a layer of redundancy, but slowly, steadily undermines the emotional realism.

     The most blatant example involves a snake that Rose lets loose in the house after she discovers Jack and Kathleen in an amorous embrace.  If that weren’t school-book worthy enough, Rose has caught the reptile after snake-hunting with the sexually active Thaddius, which brings to our resisting minds a double entendre forced on us by the film.  One of the development-houses even takes on a fearsomely motherly aspect when father and daughter spend some time underneath its roof.  Even a broken leg makes its Freudian bow.

     None of this folderol was necessary and none of it does anything but hurt the picture.  It would be nice to say that it doesn’t dim The Ballad of Jack & Rose’s virtues, but it does.  Still, a rural drama about a too-close father-daughter relationship is so far from what American cinema is churning out these days, and the simple truths that Miller does manage to extrude from the material are so satisfying, that the movie does reward a close watching.