Georgia (1995 film)

Georgia Flood is a successful folk music singer who is happily married and a mother of two. Her younger, unstable sister Sadie also sings but is less successful as a punk rock vocalist. After a touring gig with a blues singer goes awry, Sadie arrives at her sister’s Seattle-area farm, which happens to be their childhood home, and says she’s going to stay in town.

To get her career back on track again, Sadie asks her ex-boyfriend Bobby if she can return as the singer for his band. Bobby is reluctant to take her on due to her history of drug use, but relents. Sadie sings with the band at dive bars and a local bowling alley, but continues to abuse alcohol and heroin. She befriends Herman, the band's drummer and a fellow heroin addict. During a performance at a Jewish wedding, Sadie, disoriented from taking a bathroom swig of Nyquil, blanks out mid-song, forcing another band member to take over for her. Herman is eventually kicked out the band for his drug use.

While delivering groceries and liquor to Sadie at her motel room, a young man named Axel tells her he's a fan and expresses his admiration for her. They begin a relationship and soon get married. Axel, wanting Sadie to get out of the rut she’s in, asks Georgia if she can do something to help her. Georgia considers it, though she is clearly weary from her sister's continual dependence on her.

At a benefit concert, Georgia invites Sadie onstage to sing the Van Morrison song "Take Me Back" solo. The set is a painful one where Sadie is off-key and straining but her raw passion for the song comes through. Georgia comes onstage and sings with her to "save" the performance. On the tense car ride home, things come to a head between the sisters when Sadie protests Georgia's joining her onstage. Sadie gets out of the car and hitchhikes back to her motel room with Axel.

Georgia’s husband Jake suggests that his wife is being too hard on Sadie and doesn’t realize the difficulties of living in the shadow of a successful sibling. Soon after, Axel, exasperated from Sadie’s self-destruction and substance abuse, says he is going to visit his mom who is ill. Though Axel reassures her he’ll come back, Sadie realizes he is breaking up with her.

Sadie tries to look for a new gig and housing from Chasman, her old manager. Chasman refuses, saying he won't make enough money representing her. However, he offers her drugs, and the two get high together. In Oregon and in a state of drug withdrawal, a disheveled Sadie tries to board a flight back to Seattle but is denied because she isn’t wearing shoes. She makes a scene at the airport until a passenger lends her his sneakers. When Sadie arrives in Seattle, Georgia arrives and takes her to a hospital, where she is put through detox.

During Sadie’s treatment, the sisters slowly reconcile. Her bandmate Clay comes to visit her and sadly informs her that Herman overdosed while she was away. After her hospital stay, Georgia lets Sadie recover in her house. Some time later, the sisters have a difficult conversation on the porch. Georgia admits what she didn’t have the heart to say before, telling Sadie she can't sing. Sadie replies, "You wish."

The film ends with Sadie singing "Hard Times Come Again No More" with her band at a Portland bar. At a concert, Georgia is singing the same song. Accepting applause from a small crowd, Sadie says, "No one does that song better than my sister."

The film was a highly personal project for Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham.[6][7] Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, wrote the screenplay; Leigh and Turner co-produced it along with director Ulu Grosbard; and Winningham, a longtime friend who had been Leigh's camp counselor during their teen years, co-starred.[3][2][8][7]

The music in the film consists of 13 songs; to create a realistic effect, Leigh and Winningham were both filmed singing live.[9][8] The 13 songs included covers of songs by Gladys Knight & the Pips, Elvis Costello and Van Morrison.[3] In the talked-about centerpiece of the film, Sadie drunkenly performs a raw, grueling cover of Morrison's "Take Me Back" in a ragged Janis Joplin-style gut howl at an AIDS benefit concert.[4][10]

John Doe of the band X plays a supporting role and performed as a member of Sadie's band.[3]

The film's soundtrack was released on June 18, 1996.[11][7]

Jennifer Jason Leigh was voted the year's Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle and at the Montreal World Film Festival, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and was widely predicted to receive her first Oscar nomination for the role.[23][3] However, it was Mare Winningham who received an Oscar nomination (as well as an Independent Spirit Award and Screen Actors Guild nomination) as Best Supporting Actress,[2][24] while Leigh was overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[25] Speaking to MetroActive magazine, Winningham said: “I felt incredibly honored and touched to be nominated...But it was hard to be separated from Jennifer, because she was the heart and soul of that film. While we were making the movie, I thought not only that she would get a nomination, but that she would win. I saw the kind of work she was doing. In my mind she will always be the greatest performance of that year, and a lot of other people thought so, too. Meryl Streep grabbed me at the Academy Awards. She said, 'Jennifer should be here!' and I said, 'I know!'”[2]

• Georgia at IMDb
• Georgia at Box Office Mojo
• Georgia at Rotten Tomatoes
• Georgia at AllMovie