On Saturday, I went to Harrisburg's Midtown Cinema to see "Get Low." You may remember my being very excited about this movie based on the trailer(s) a few months ago. I've also recently attended the Midtown Cinema to see "Winter's Bone." The two movies bear a comparison.
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| "No Damn Trespassing." |
Let me start by recommending "Get Low." Robert Duvall and Bill Murray turn in amazing performances. The movie itself is nothing special; a period piece based on a true story featuring a few outstanding shots and mediocre pacing. It is, in some ways, a mystery movie. Duvall's character (Felix Bush)'s intentions are never clear, and the all events that follow might, or perhaps might not, be his doing. Bill Murray is the money-loving undertaker who is willing to go the extra mile for... Felix's sake? for his own sake? That mystery also unfolds, though is resolved much less satisfactorily than the story's central mystery: What lies in Felix Bush's past? The reveal (don't worry, I won't spoil it) is a masterpiece of acting. Duvall stands onstage and tells a story and the camera shows admirable restraint. We see him telling his story. We see the reactions of the important characters. We see no flashbacks or cutaways. This movie knows its strengths, and uses them well.
"Winter's Bone" has some similarities: a story set in rural America that unfolds into a suspenseful mystery. The difference is that Winter's Bone is set in the contemporary Ozarks in the midst of a meth-cooking extended family. When her father posts her family's house as bail, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) sets out to find him in order to save the family.
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| The guy on the left is not Viggo Mortensen, but he could be. |
Unlike "Get Low," the mystery here is simple: where is he? Unlike "Get Low" this movie's strength is in its atmosphere. The acting is believable, the suspense works, at time achieving Hitchcockian proportions (e.g. The scene when the cops pull over the pickup truck. That's all I'll say). The movie's greatest success, though, is in selling this slice of rural America. At times feeling like a mob movie, at times like a noir, at times like a coming-of-age story, it maintains its cold blue gaze on Ree and her extended family, and
the minutiae that define their lives (sharing recently-killed vension, teaching a five-year-old to hunt squirrel, first-name familiarity with the bail-bondsman). It is this atmosphere that makes "Winter's Bone" a memorable movie, and (I hesitate to say this, considering how much I hyped "Get Low") the better of the two.
But go see them both, and let me know what you think.
P.S. I really wanted to title this post "Got Low," but then I decided to incorporate "Winter's Bone" as well. Just wanted to let y'all know.
2 comments:
I saw both of these movies this past summer, and I also preferred "Winter's Bone," although I liked both of them and would recommend both of them. Perhaps I just like gritty realism more than I like fables.
I was really hoping this would be a review of the Lil Jon song... next post? :p
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