Harrison's Flowers is a journey into a journalist's personal hell. While some may feel that the premise of the story is rather lame and confabulated, it serves a purpose. To show the human side of the photo journalists who bring the horrors of the world to those of us who, as they noted in the movie, are just worried about getting a parking ticket.
Too often when we non-journalists see photos of war zones we are horrified and, at the same time, we are dumbfounded as to how someone could be so inhuman and unfeeling as to photograph such graphic examples of man's inhumanity to man. Harrison's Flowers is excellent at showing us that just as a reader we can't stop looking at the horror even though we are revolted, the journalist cannot stop photographing and documenting it even though the human side of them is revolted as well.
As for Andie MacDowell's so-called wooden performance, one must remember that in this film she is seeing her husband's and his colleagues' world through their eyes for the first time. How quickly would any of us be able to break out of our shock-like trance and be totally outraged or emotional if this were the first time we were seeing it? Even the veteran photo journalist portrayed by Brendan Gleeson was paralyzed with shock more than once in the film. Andie MacDowell's character came from such an insulated world that seemingly emotionless shock was the perfect way to portray Sarah, who simply cannot fathom what she sees unfolding around her.
Harrison's Flowers is an excellent portrayal of the Serbo-Croatian hell that descended upon that part of Europe and irreparably tore apart the life of anyone in its path.
