AT ANY PRICE (Ramin Bahrani 2013)

[Chris Knipp]

Ramin Bahrani: AT ANY PRICE (2013)


ZAC EFRON AND DENNIS QUAID IN AT ANY PRICE

Trouble in the plains

Esteemed American indie director Ramin Bahrani has run afoul of ambition in his more conventional and larger scale picture about conflict among Iowa corn farmers, At Any Price, starring name actors Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron. There are two major flaws, the messy screenplay and Quaid's tonally confused, mugging performance. At fist this seems like an issue flick, like Gus Van Sant's recent fracking drama, Promised Land, because it early on introduces the hot button issue of genetically modified seeds. But then it swerves in several other directions, with no satisfying resolution.

Henry Whipple (Quaid) is a farmer feeling the pinch of agribusiness. He raises corn and also sells seeds. In the selling he pretends to be dominant, but is always bettered by fellow Liberty seed salesman and rival farmer Jim Johnson (Clancy Brown). He's having an harmful affair that his wife knows about with a local woman (Heather Graham), and, a second generation farmer of this land, is deeply invested in the legacy being carried on by his two sons, Grant, who has gone off to climb mountains in India, and young firecracker Dean (Efron), who wants to be a race car driver. He smiles at everyone -- actually he grins ear to ear -- but is filled with rage and desperation, a modern day Willie Loman pretending things are okay when they aren't. His desperate effort to cover up his trickery in business gets him into trouble. But though GMO seeds are involved, the overriding issues of GMO's are never in sight. Instead the overwrought story swerves into crime and guilt and cover-up. Absurdly, Bahrani ends the story as if nothing had happened. When Henry's wife Irene says "this is a partnership" about their marriage, at that point the words are heavy indeed.

Quaid's performance seems heroic for a while, but then becomes just confused and, like the screenplay, overwrought. Efron on the other hand, though as often somewhat burdened by his pretty, sweet looks, delivers a satisfyingly understated performance in a role that could have had as many extremes in it as Quaid's. The understatement works much better. But Dean's racing car story seems conventional, and part of another movie. Maybe Bahrani meant this to be an issue flick, too, but was working on a scale of complexity that was beyond him. There is also the feel of an epic about family conflict and devolution, like George Stevens' 1956 American classic Giant, but on a more modest scale -- corn being different from oil, and Iowa different from Texas. But this does not develop, as things move toward the unexpected and the violent. And, finally, the unresolved, the paved-over. The turning away may seem heroic, again, but is handled in a way that makes it just seem peculiar.

Other performances are decent, by the three ladies, Heather Graham as Henry's mistress, Kim Dickens as Irene, Henry's loyal wife, and Malika Monroe as Cadence, Dean's trashy but sterling would-be girlfriend. Bahrani likes to use gnarly character actors like Chelcie Ross, who plays Byron, Henry's former ally, who may have become an enemy; he's a little like Lane "Roc" Williams, the old man in Bahrani's offbeat, rather magical last feature Goodbye Solo.

In writing like this, eventually everything starts to seem like a red herring. There's a difference between complexity and lack of direction that is not a concern in a little picture like Goodbye Solo but in the kind of more conventional material Bahrani is working with in At Any Price becomes fatally destructive. But this may be seen as an interesting effort, despite its oddity and muddled conclusion. And there are those who admire it, including the late lamented Roger Ebert, who called it "a great film."

At Any Price debuted at Venice, followed by Telluride and Toronto (all 2012), South by Southwest and Tribeca (2013). It goes into limited US release 24 April 2013.