EIFF 2014 Film Review - Joe (2014)

Prince Avalanche Review

Rating:
15
Release Date:
18th October 2013 (UK)
Director:
David Gordon Green
Cast:
Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch, Lance LeGault
David Gordon Green’s output has been markedly spasmodic over the years, with a career that has followed up the gracefulness of George Washington with the odd, bleakness of Snow Angels and the tactless inanity of Pineapple Express and The Sitter. Happily he is in more contemplative mood with Prince Avalanche, his remake of 2011 Icelandic comedy Either Way which steers him right back down the path of meandering indie-sensibility.

Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch are a bummed-out pair of puffins working to repaint the road markings in the rural, fire-damaged Texas countryside. Rudd is Alvin, the pensive - yet explosive - elder statesman, pining for the company of his girlfriend from whom he routinely departs for weeks at a time to find solace in his work and solitude. Hirsch is Lance, the naive brother of the girl in question, tagging along for the ride, the pay and Alvin’s hope that the experience will impart some sort of worldly wisdom into a mind, as yet, interested largely in tits.

The pair’s work is occasionally interrupted by a benevolent, beer-wielding truck driver; Lance departs for a weekend of casual sex while Alvin fishes and mediates amongst the burnt-out ruins of the houses scatter the area.

Whether this slow-burning walking-movie will work for you will depend quite squarely on your ability to warm to this pair of underachievers, so intently focused is the narrative on their brotherly joshing and complaining.

I’ve suspected that Rudd may have something of the air of genius about him since he deftly and effortlessly caught my eye in Our Idiot Brother and his performance here is as naturally endearing as that, if not more so. Alvin inhabits a universe which is in turn inhabited by regret and misfortune; Rudd’s capacity to convey pig-headed insecurity and denial, tempered with genuine amiability is wonderful. Hirsch’s obnoxious, frivolity is a counterbalance, but a welcome one, and the resulting two-handed stream of petty nitpicking giving way to good honest love is utterly charming.

Chuck in a score from Explosions in the Sky which tidily and sweetly underlines the fraught, tetchy, but ultimately tender arrangement and it all amounts to something which very nearly convinces you pack your own bags, grab a comic and head for the woods yourself.

★★★★☆

Chris Banks