Bright Leaves

Bright Leaves is not the kind of film that thetruth.com would use in its anti-smoking campaign.

A gently provocative film diary about tobacco and its mixed legacy.

Bright Leaves is a beguiling film. Watching it is like spending time with an old, somewhat chatty but endearing friend.

McElwee's best film since Sherman's March.

It's a meandering visit by a curious man with a quiet sense of humor.

The mysteries McElwee sets out to solve aren't very involving, and his meandering style, while charming first and literate, becomes repetitive and yes, even a little dull.

Classic McElwee blending together the personal and the political in his native North Carolina, to which he something of the same ambivalent relation that Faulkner, another son of the South, had to Mississippi.

This is a highly personal journey, reminiscent of a smart, sardonic personal essay you might find in Harper's magazine or a quirky, savvy radio piece on NPR's 'This American Life.'

Touches on serious matters with a sly, self-deprecating sense of humor that makes receiving its messages a pleasure rather than a chore.

Ross McElwee ambles through one tobacco-related subject after another... it's too scattered all over the place to be truly informative.