This was written and directed by David Lowery, to whom I give bonus points for originality.
A young man, Casey Affleck, accepts blame for wounding a police officer in some tiny retro town in Missouri, although it was his lover, Mara Rooney, who did the shooting. After a few years in the slams, Affleck crashes out and heads towards home, determine to see his girl friend, who still loves him, and his little girl. The cop, who doesn't know who shot him, falls for Rooney and the girl and thinks of them as his family. Everyone in town, including the police, soon learns that the fugitive is on his way. Guess what happens?
The central idea -- lawbreaker wittingly heads towards forbidden place for personal reasons -- is hardly new. There are echoes of "One False Move," "Bonny and Clyde", "Falling Down," and "Behold a Pale Horse."
What IS new is the treatment. It's all slow and deliberate. Nobody makes wisecracks during action scenes. The musical score doesn't blitz us with electronic noise. The editing is thoughtful enough to let us see what's going on, instead of being the usual maddening instantaneous clips. The acting is restrained, subtle. People think before they speak. And there is a near absence of gore. When Affleck shoots an attacker, it's a medium shot in a river at night.
One might carp that the whole project is too dark, which it is. Missouri must never see the sun. But that's a minor thing. It does drag at times and, given the climax, it's rather like watching a fuse slowly sputtering towards a stack of dynamite that never really explodes. There are some loose ends too. I don't know what the title means or where that buried box of treasure came from.
I've never warmed up to Casey Affleck. There's always something about to burst out of him when he uses that cracked, whiny voice. I keep waiting for him to bop somebody over the sconce with a baseball bat. But his screen persona fits the role of the laid-back Southern boy just fine.
Mara Rooney is as fixed to her role as an enzyme to its substrate. She's a wan, pretty, contralto. If she doesn't smile, it's because the doesn't have much to smile about. Ben Foster, as the once-wounded policeman, now would-be husband, is a strict nonentity in the looks department and that's just great. He's convincing as hell as the sincere and perceptive second male lead.
Daniel Hart did the musical score. The melancholy music -- no tunes -- is heard almost constantly but it doesn't interfere with the narrative because it comes in long sheets of drawn-out chords with occasional syncopated hand-clapping or violin plucking. Carter Burwell and my man Philip Glass draw from the same spring.
If you begin to watch it, stick with it for a while. Adult sensibilities may take a little getting used to, after all the garbage polluting our screens these days. This one doesn't even have a car chase and there is not a SINGLE VAMPIRE in sight.
A young man, Casey Affleck, accepts blame for wounding a police officer in some tiny retro town in Missouri, although it was his lover, Mara Rooney, who did the shooting. After a few years in the slams, Affleck crashes out and heads towards home, determine to see his girl friend, who still loves him, and his little girl. The cop, who doesn't know who shot him, falls for Rooney and the girl and thinks of them as his family. Everyone in town, including the police, soon learns that the fugitive is on his way. Guess what happens?
The central idea -- lawbreaker wittingly heads towards forbidden place for personal reasons -- is hardly new. There are echoes of "One False Move," "Bonny and Clyde", "Falling Down," and "Behold a Pale Horse."
What IS new is the treatment. It's all slow and deliberate. Nobody makes wisecracks during action scenes. The musical score doesn't blitz us with electronic noise. The editing is thoughtful enough to let us see what's going on, instead of being the usual maddening instantaneous clips. The acting is restrained, subtle. People think before they speak. And there is a near absence of gore. When Affleck shoots an attacker, it's a medium shot in a river at night.
One might carp that the whole project is too dark, which it is. Missouri must never see the sun. But that's a minor thing. It does drag at times and, given the climax, it's rather like watching a fuse slowly sputtering towards a stack of dynamite that never really explodes. There are some loose ends too. I don't know what the title means or where that buried box of treasure came from.
I've never warmed up to Casey Affleck. There's always something about to burst out of him when he uses that cracked, whiny voice. I keep waiting for him to bop somebody over the sconce with a baseball bat. But his screen persona fits the role of the laid-back Southern boy just fine.
Mara Rooney is as fixed to her role as an enzyme to its substrate. She's a wan, pretty, contralto. If she doesn't smile, it's because the doesn't have much to smile about. Ben Foster, as the once-wounded policeman, now would-be husband, is a strict nonentity in the looks department and that's just great. He's convincing as hell as the sincere and perceptive second male lead.
Daniel Hart did the musical score. The melancholy music -- no tunes -- is heard almost constantly but it doesn't interfere with the narrative because it comes in long sheets of drawn-out chords with occasional syncopated hand-clapping or violin plucking. Carter Burwell and my man Philip Glass draw from the same spring.
If you begin to watch it, stick with it for a while. Adult sensibilities may take a little getting used to, after all the garbage polluting our screens these days. This one doesn't even have a car chase and there is not a SINGLE VAMPIRE in sight.