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'The Ballad of Jack and Rose' is a murky but haunting song

In her tale of a 20th-century Garden of Eden in freefall, writer-director Rebecca Miller doesn't stint on symbolism. She even unleashes a poisonous snake on the movie's lost paradise, the direct consequence of a girl's first sexual experience.

IFC Films 'The Ballad of Jack and Rose' C+ The verdict: A well-acted but unfocused portrait of a too-close father and daughter. Director: Rebecca Miller Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Camilla Belle, Beau Bridges, Catherine Keener, Paul Dano, Ryan McDonald Run time: 111 minutes Release date: March 25, 2005 Rating: R for language, sexual content and some drug material. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

That's 16-year-old Rose (Camilla Belle), the overprotected heroine of "The Ballad of Jack and Rose." It's 1986 and she lives alone with her father, Jack (Daniel Day-Lewis), in a rough-hewn, solar-powered house on an island off the East Coast. It was once the site of a commune Jack helped found. Though his back-to-the-land pals have moved on, Jack remains in the '60s, body and spirit.

He's now waging a one-man war against Marty Rance (Beau Bridges), a mainland contractor building carbon-copy houses in the island's fragile wetlands who has his eye on Jack's property, too.

Home schooled since age 11, Rose spends the day gardening, feeding the chickens or — when he isn't busy firing warning shots at construction workers — lying in the grass with Jack, cloud-watching. When they gaze at each other, something about their smiles makes you go, "Uh-oh."

Miller's fable of lost time and innocence gives us a modern wannabe Adam and Eve who face the distinct obstacle of being father and daughter. Dying of heart disease, Jack slowly realizes he's raised a perfect young woman for an imperfect world. As Kathleen (Catherine Keener), Jack's girlfriend from the mainland, points out, "Rose is the way you made her."

Worse, through their isolation, he's become a romantic as well as father figure to Rose. The tug is dangerously mutual.

Icky? Yeah. But as in her last film, "Personal Velocity," Miller is interested in sketching character studies, not in revving for melodrama or punching hot-button topics. Daughter of the late Arthur Miller, she also knows a thing or two about overwhelming father figures.

Deciding that Rose and he both need the boundaries that come with more traditional family life, Jack invites Kathleen and her two teen sons to move in. Bad idea. Rodney (Ryan McDonald) is overweight and sardonic. Thadius (Paul Dano) is sullen and oversexed. They don't tempt Rose with apples, but they might as well.

Cue the copperhead.

When jealous Rose starts to play dangerous tricks on Kathleen, "Ballad" briefly threatens to turn into one of those "Poison Ivy" movies. The girl also approaches a couple of islanders to deflower her, psychological revenge against her father. The clumsy way she goes about it shows how socially inept island life has made her. As Rodney puts it, "Innocent people are just dangerous."

Unfortunately, unlike the three precise character portraits of "Personal Velocity," "Ballad" suffers from narrative shapelessness. It's hard to tell what message Miller is trying to convey. A brief epilogue set two years after the main action doesn't clarify her point of view either.

The acting is almost good enough to make you overlook the movie's flaws. Like her character, Belle is sometimes a little too opaque but has unnerving features that make her look like a woman one moment, a 12-year-old the next. Keener, with her cascade of hair and a wardrobe of Indian blouses, immediately conjures the back story of a free spirit struggling with part-time jobs and single motherhood. Jena Malone also sparks a few scenes as a Lilith-like pal of the boys.

The main reason to see "Ballad" is Day-Lewis (Miller's husband). As in his previous roles he combines emotional precision with a distinct physicality. Here, emaciated, he seems to grow frailer and grayer with every scene. Notoriously picky in his choices, this is only the actor's fourth film in 12 years. Despite the movie's elusiveness, it reminds us how talented he is, and why we have missed him.