Come Early Morning (2006)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 48
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 8
A quiet but moving film anchored by the unexpected depth of Ashley Judd's performance.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 19
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 2
A quiet but moving film anchored by the unexpected depth of Ashley Judd's performance.
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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 4,606
Movie Info
A Southern beauty whose habit of waking up in strange beds with head-ringing hangovers is beginning to wear thin determines to uncover her secret shrouded family past in hopes of discovering the truth about the woman she has become in the feature filmmaking debut of actor-turned-director Joey Lauren Adams. Lucy (Ashley Judd) is a small town thirtysomething who seems to have fallen into a downward spiral of alcohol-fueled benders and spontaneous one-night stands. In order to begin the
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All Critics (48) | Top Critics (19) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (8) | DVD (1)
If and when Come Early Morning ever resurfaces on DVD, order it immediately-and while you're at it, order Chasing Amy too, if you haven't already seen it, and enjoy a dandy double feature with two country girls of enormous talent.
Top CriticThis is a quietly powerful film about small-town Southern living that avoids all the usual clichés and makes us feel as if we're dropping in on real lives in mid-stream.
The baby-voiced costar of Chasing Amy proves an effortless filmmaker, turning Lucy's journey into the awakening of a soul.
In Come Early Morning, Ashley Judd delivers her most natural screen performance since Ruby in Paradise, the film that pushed her toward stardom in 1993.
In a way, the movie itself is an example of that philosophy put into practice. [Director] Adams clearly did a lot of soul-searching as she wrote the story. Her introspective script provides another actress with a great role and a new start.
Beautifully photographed by Tim Orr, Come Early Morning is the kind of small gem that's becoming increasingly rare in American films.
Judd surely deserves the lion's share of kudos for the movie's success...
custom made for Judd; she's brilliant
With an honest and starkly minimalist approach, Adams paints a vivid, often painful portrait of a woman who has nothing to look forward to except the next one-night stand.
What Come Early Morning does is create an utterly convincing central character, and surround her with a milieu and backstory that is sincere and convincing.
Overall, the film lacks energy and the plot has no driving force.
The best thing about Adams' film is its unhurried, casual naturalism.
The writing and directing by Joey Lauren Adams express an admirable naturalness and eschews rose-tinted solutions.
...nothing less than a minor key wonder of a film, a character study of novelistic complexity with a sure sense of place and purpose that seems akin to movies made before Hollywood discovered its corporate destiny.
Subdued and deliberate, but also sensitive and quietly moving. And it gives Judd a chance to shine as a real actress again.
In fact this film is generally about nothing. There's an attempt to show some growth in some relationships, but there really isn't any and we're left where we started.
It's a Southern story, but not cloying in the way that many Hollywood versions of the rustic South are.
The film has a worn, live-in feel, and its unhurried narrative captures the subtle rhythms of small-town life. Nothing much happens on the surface, but worlds of hope, hurt and determination lie right behind the characters' eyes, waiting to be discovered.
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Movie: ID: 390467926 Title: Come Early Morning Release Date: 2006-11-10 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Without much of a story to speak of, "Come Early Morning" has to rely on the charms of its rough hewn subjects to engage the audience with the study of a character who is haunted by the past mistakes of her family, leading her to act impulsively, sometimes without the help of alcohol. Wrapping that all up, the movie is perfunctory in its conclusions but thankfully not its resolution. In this case, I would have to say that the country music and the religion add regional flavor instead of acting as stereotypes. Regardless, the movie is helped by a good cast that also includes Diane Ladd, Stacy Keach and Ray McKinnon, of which Ashley Judd fares best in a thoroughly lived in performance.