The Rose Technique

Running time: N/A

West Coast Premiere Reminiscent of Serial Mom, Jon Scheide's dark, offbeat, and hilarious debut feature (from a script by producer Ray Stroeber), The Rose Technique, is a sinister comedy. Jo Beth Williams (The Big Chill, Poltergeist) stars as Dr. Lillian Rose, a tough-love, "Dr. Laura-like" therapist with her own self-help method. Mixing Freud with Martha Stewart, Dr. Rose encourages her loyal followers to employ the basic tenets of the unorthodox Rose Technique: 1) getting to the Root of the problem, 2) Owning it, 3) Separating out what's healthy, and 4) Eliminating the dead wood. Dr. Rose's "dead wood," however, is anyone who stands in the way of her stardom. And practicing what she preaches, when Dr. Rose eliminates the dead wood in her life, she really does eliminate. Jo Beth Williams deftly glides through her role as Dr. Rose with a high caliber comedic performance of a lifetime-fiercely satirizing the media, celebritism, cultists, and the self-help industry. Not only will you laugh, but also you may shudder a little with the recognition of mental instability of those in positions of influence in our society. Reviewed by Sandy Wolf