'JACK AND ROSE' TOUCHES HEARTS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

A GARDEN OF Eden tale about innocence lost and the costs of idealism, Rebecca Miller's ``The Ballad of Jack and Rose'' boasts great acting, thick symbolism and a story that gets a little too easily sidetracked.

The sheer talent of the great Daniel Day-Lewis carries the film through its rough patches, making the movie, first and foremost, another showcase for the world's most gifted actor.

When we first meet the characters of the film's title, they are peacefully lying on a green bed of grass, sharing a tender embrace. The ambiguity of the relationship is unsettling. It's 1986 and Jack (Day-Lewis) and 16-year-old Rose (Camilla Belle) are living on a remote East Coast island, the only holdovers from a utopian commune. Their world is self-contained, claustrophobic. And it's all about to change.

Jack has a weak heart. His days are numbered. Rose, his daughter, tells him, ``When you die, I'm going to die.'' And she means it. That's how close they are. Knowing that he has failed his daughter on some very basic levels, Jack brings his casual girlfriend, Kathleen (Catherine Keener, quite wonderful here) and her two teenage sons (Ryan McDonald, Paul Dano) over from the mainland. Big mistake.

Having been sheltered from influences other than her father, Rose doesn't know how to react to the presence of these strangers and begins acting out. She's particularly peeved that Kathleen is sharing her father's bed and dividing his attention. She, in turn, solicits the attentions of Kathleen's boys, setting in motion a series of events that forces Jack to face the mess he has made.

Day-Lewis wears Jack's burdens and remorse like an 800-pound sack on his back and vividly brings to life the character's multitude of contradictions. A man of principle whose fierce devotion to those convictions has apparently - Miller never spells this out - driven away his wife and fellow utopians, Jack is a control freak realizing, too late, that the depth of his devotion may well have poisoned his daughter.

If Miller (daughter of the late playwright Arthur Miller) cannot match this portrait of moral complexity elsewhere, she does create a thoughtful rumination on mortality, isolationism and the costs of idealism. ``Jack and Rose'' may, at times, feel like a melodrama (the scenes with the teens are never fully realized), but at its heart, it's a tragedy about a man who could never live up to the ideas in his head. And, boy, does Day- Lewis make you feel his pain.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE - Three stars

(R: language, sexual content, some drug material)

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Camilla Belle, Catherine Keener.

Director: Rebecca Miller.

Running time: 1 hr. 52 min.

Playing: ArcLight Hollywood; Laemmle's Monica in Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: A coming-of-age tale and a rumination on mortality.

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Daniel Day-Lewis and Camilla Belle are father and daughter in ``The Ballad of Jack and Rose.''