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HARRISON'S FLOWERS Send This Review to a Friend
The most effective part about "Harrison's Flowers" is its harrowing depiction of the slaughter that took place in the war that raged in what was once Yugoslavia. Director Elie Chouraqui makes the scenes of battle, danger to war correspondents and brutal ethnic cleansing frighteningly vivid. The love story that's the excuse for the close-up of killing is another matter.
David Strathairn plays Harrison Lloyd, a hot-shot photographer working for Newsweek. He's had it and wants to quit to spend time with his wife, Sarah (Andie MacDowell) and his children, especially his young son, from whom he has become rather estranged. He also takes great pleasure in growing flowers. But he's talked into one more assignment. Word comes back that he's been killed, but Sarah refuses to believe it. So off she trots to look for him in the war-torn locations.
Sarah's saga is unbelievable to say the least, and as an actress, MacDowell can do little to overcome the incredibility with which that part of the film is saddled, as war photographer colleagues of her husband discover Sarah lying battered and bleeding and take on the responsibility of helping her in the search they believe is fruitless.
One doesn't like to give away endings, but what moviegoer would be naïve enough to believe that in a film like this she doesn't discover Harrison alive? Other performances are contributed by Elias Koteas, Brendan Gleeson, Adrien Brody and Alun Armstrong, who can't do anything to make the story more believable. It's only the killing field that seems like the real thing. A Universal Focus release.
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