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David Gordon Green: Undertow (2004)
DAVID GORDON GREEN: UNDERTOW (2004)
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A pull toward convention
A teenage boy smashes his would be girlfriend’s window and gets chased by the cops. He leaps out of a barn and lands on a plank driving a long nail through his foot – but surprises us by keeping on running, howling with pain, plank and all. When he’s taken to jail he’s patched up and released and given the plank back. When he gets home he carves it into a birthday present, a toy airplane for his little brother. This is how this movie begins.
Undertow takes place in an unnamed rural part of Georgia near water where at first we meet two boys, Chris and Tim Munn (Jamie Bell and the young Devon Alan) who live on a small isolated pig farm with their moody father, John Munn (Dermot Mulroney), a widower who’s buried himself in this far off place because he can’t deal with his wife’s passing. The action hinges on a set of gold coins that have an almost fairy-tale significance, and the Brothers Grimm were an influence on the story.
Yes indeed: the story. This new movie by much admired young American director David Gordon Green arouses disappointment in some of his fans who miss the quirky, stylized meanderings of his George Washington and All the Real Girls, because Undertow moves squarely into the more conventional world of plot and action. Others who like myself admired almost everything about his earlier efforts but their lack of a strong narrative line are glad that this time there is one. But no doubt it comes at a price. There's a tug of war between the old Green and the new one going on.
Suddenly John’s brother Deel Munn (Josh Lucas) unexpectedly appears, just out of jail and full of anger and envy. Deel’s arrival at the farm is electric in its effect. From then on the scene is nothing but tension. Mulroney and Lucas, if we discount the too-perfect hunkiness, make a good pair of brothers. Both are big, physical, attractive men whose faces aren’t unalike. Mulroney has sullenness about him; Lucas is edgy and aggressive. It turns out John’s late wife was Deel’s girlfriend first, and John stole her away from him, so the fraternal conflict was truly primal. Their confrontation makes you realize how successfully violence conveys a sense of structure in any story.
Green’s earlier movies fell flat for me -- George Washington was singular and engaging but went nowhere, and All the Real Girls had more character development but suffered from bad casting and embarrassing dialogue. At its worst moments, which tended to stick in the mind, both movies seemed like Hallmark cards for rural retards.
But Undertow does not disappoint, despite its flaws. It retains the distinctive style. But because it’s successfully plot-driven from very early on, the meanderings -- having a firm foundation in action and character -- come to seem engaging digressions rather than mere self-indulgence.
“Despite a few narrative confusions," Jonathan Rosenbaum has written of Undertow, “I found it pure magic.” You could be cynical and say it would take magic to justify the confusions. But Rosenbaum isn’t far wrong. For whatever faults it has, Undertow really sings.
COMPLETE REVIEW: http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/vi....php?p=363#363
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-26-2021 at 07:06 PM.
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