Desert Bloom **** (1986, Jon Voight, JoBeth Williams, Annabeth Gish) – Classic Movie Review 10,634

Director Eugene Corr’s 1986 drama Desert Bloom is the exceptionally moving, bitter-sweet tale of a 13-year-old girl Rose Chismore (Annabeth Gish)’s awakening amid family turmoil and all the flash and trash of early Fifties Las Vegas, including the desert bomb testing of the day.

The ensemble acting is of an explosively high calibre: young Gish, Jon Voight as her drunken stepfather Jack, JoBeth Williams as her weak mother, Ellen Barkin as her sexy aunt and Jay D Underwood as her first love, with Allen Garfield too.

They make the most of director Eugene Corr’s deep-cutting screenplay, told in flashback. It may be sombre but it is a success.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,634

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