Dir by James Marsh and starring William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal
Marsh, who made Wisconsin Death Trip, which I still really want to see, created a very well directed, incredibly strange film. I didn’t hear shit about it when it came out, and just caught it deep in the cable channels. This film reminded me of Public Access, Bryan Singer’s first film, in that it was an indie film with a stranger that turns into a thriller.
Hurt plays a preacher in Corpus Christi, TX, Bernal shows up in town and presents himself as a 21 year old who just got out of the Navy. He claims that Hurt is his father, and has stories and pictures of a woman named Yolanda, who is his mother, and with whom Hurt had a dalliance years ago.
The really cool thing that Marsh did was that he populated the story with stereotypical characters—chief among them the southern preacher of Hurt, with his idiotic mustache into beard “groomed Lemmy” thing. It started to look like the movie was going to be like the Robert Duvall preacher movie, The Apostle, then it took a twist. And more and more twists. Any time you think you have it figured out, it zags one you, and it helps that it’s schizophrenic, moving between dark and stepford. And it all pays off.
For most plots, I give away spoilers, because you see that shit coming. Or you should. If a flick can really jerk me around, then kudos, and I won’t spoil it other than saying go see it. This is one such film. Though I will say that the score, which sounded like Michael Nyman scoring the Spanish Prisoner, was annoying.
Marsh, who made Wisconsin Death Trip, which I still really want to see, created a very well directed, incredibly strange film. I didn’t hear shit about it when it came out, and just caught it deep in the cable channels. This film reminded me of Public Access, Bryan Singer’s first film, in that it was an indie film with a stranger that turns into a thriller.
Hurt plays a preacher in Corpus Christi, TX, Bernal shows up in town and presents himself as a 21 year old who just got out of the Navy. He claims that Hurt is his father, and has stories and pictures of a woman named Yolanda, who is his mother, and with whom Hurt had a dalliance years ago.
The really cool thing that Marsh did was that he populated the story with stereotypical characters—chief among them the southern preacher of Hurt, with his idiotic mustache into beard “groomed Lemmy” thing. It started to look like the movie was going to be like the Robert Duvall preacher movie, The Apostle, then it took a twist. And more and more twists. Any time you think you have it figured out, it zags one you, and it helps that it’s schizophrenic, moving between dark and stepford. And it all pays off.
For most plots, I give away spoilers, because you see that shit coming. Or you should. If a flick can really jerk me around, then kudos, and I won’t spoil it other than saying go see it. This is one such film. Though I will say that the score, which sounded like Michael Nyman scoring the Spanish Prisoner, was annoying.
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