Billy Bob Thornton‘s first narrative directorial effort since 2001’s “Daddy and Them” certainly doesn’t lack for ambition, what with a dozen or so characters from three generations of two different families bumping heads (and other body parts) at a family funeral in the Deep South of the late 1960s.
Despite the presence of a powerhouse cast, however, “Jayne Mansfield’s Car” suffers from a screenplay (by Thornton and Tom Epperson) that’s both too sprawling and too tidy; it’s one thing to explore the messiness of familial relationships and regret against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, and something else entirely to try and shove every jot and tiddle in place before the closing credits roll.