Enjoying the Silence
This is the kind of movie that renders a star rating system kind of
silly. It is a perfect movie in its own right, which should mean it would get 5
stars, but the movie and its ambitions are so small it should seem like it
would get 3 stars at the most. So in essence, it is one of those 5 star 3 star
movies. I gave it 4/5 stars, which in no situation would make sense but hey as
Roger Ebert would say, forget the stars and read the review (or watch the
movie). That’s the only real way to get a sense of how good it is.
The movie concerns two weeks in the lives of two men Alvin (Paul Rudd)
and his brother-in-law Lance (Emile Hirsch). They are painting new road lines on
a desolate Texan highway ravaged by wildfire. It is the late 1980s, although
there is no reason for this movie to be set at any time in particular. The
wildfires are not based on any specific wildfires. Actually I think the movie
may be set in the 1980s just as an excuse to deprive the characters of their
smart phones. After most of the conflict deals with how the two men deal with
isolation from the rest of the world. Alvin, the older and seemingly more
mature man is more comfortable with the silence. He knows how to gut a fish,
tie a knot, and make a campsite. Lance on the other hand knows nothing about
camping and really really does not care to learn. What he is going through is a
special type of hell. His current life goal is to get laid as much as possible.
Being in nature around nothing, he explains, just makes him hornier. Lance does
not understand why Alvin won’t take the chance to go home for the weekend to
visit his long-time girlfriend. He jumps at the chance to leave while Alvin is
happy with having some real alone time. There is a particularly good scene in
which Alvin in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two takes an interest
in listening to the story of Lance’s weird weekend, a monologue delivered
splendidly by Emile Hirsch. Imagine having a bonding heart to heart
conversation with someone and walking away from it firmly convinced that you
have absolutely nothing in common. “Somehow in your head,” muses Alvin, “you
really believe you are a gentleman.” “Huh?” asks the still hung over Lance. A
pause. “(Nevermind in German)” says Alvin.
This movie was directed by David Gordon Green, an accomplished director
of stoner comedies like Pineapple Express and some movies he made before that I
have not seen, but had some critics saying he was very much like Terrance
Malick. (I read that in a review about this movie). I can sort of see that, in
that way he is quite content to slow the movie down and pay attention to
puddles and rain and yellow paint in a pretty way. There are also a couple of
scenes in which Alvin and Lance are separately visited by what might be the
ghost of an old woman who may have died in the wildfire. The use of voiceover
in lieu of dialogue makes them strangely effective scenes.
I can’t talk too much about the plot because if I start explaining it in
detail, then I am giving away too much of what happens in the movie because you
know very little happens in the movie. It is of course done well in a way that
perhaps you have not seen before and will not see in a mainstream movie. The
movie is also funny in that way in which humorous things happen but not enough
of them for the movie to actually be considered a comedy. Then again it is
never a bad thing to just hang out with Paul Rudd for 90 minutes and for those
of you who have liked “Into the Wild,” here is Emile Hirsch out in nature once
more. It is a relaxing movie. I liked it.
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