|
Operating as if the last twenty-five years of filmmaking never happened, Get Low plows its narrative field with the slow pacing of a mule, yet stays steady enough to keep its overall work a worthy endeavor. First-time director Aaron Schneider’s film has a heartfelt and somewhat amusing story to tell about one town’s mysterious hermit who decides to throw a funeral for himself before he dies. Shot entirely on location in Georgia, Get Low, propped up by some damn strong acting from its leads, feels as authentic as a country road.
Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) is a cranky old man. He lives, deep in the woods, all alone. No one in the neighboring town knows much about him. They hear things. Maybe he shot a man. Maybe he stole some money. Maybe the devil himself works through him. The rumors swapped back and forth about the mysterious old hoot just about match the amount of bullets he shoots at trespassers, young or old, as they cross onto his property. Yet, all that the town thinks they know about Felix Bush is about to get challenged.
Knowing that he is nearing the end of his lonely life, Felix decides to ride his mule into a town full of cars and hire two men, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) and Buddy Robinson (Lucas Black), to throw him a funeral party. Quinn’s Funeral Parlor, hurting for business in a town where no one dies, accepts his odd-sounding offer and set about collecting the needed guests, including Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek) and Reverend Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobb), to make the party go according to Felix’s wishes.
Written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell, Get Low explores one man’s attempt to seek forgiveness, after spending a lifetime in a self-assigned purgatory, of his burden before it is time to ‘get low’. Duvall, in a criminally spot-on role destined to earn him an Oscar nomination, is a revelation every single minute on-screen in front of Schneider’s camera, chewing over dialogue with a precision unmatched by his contemporaries. Earnest, heartfelt, and humorously wise, one can easily tell that every page of Felix’s story means the world to the actor. It’s an achingly timeless portrayal of a folksy character enriched by Duvall’s timing and well-rooted intelligence.
Murray as the snake-oiled con man with a heart for Spacek’s Darrow is also note-for-note right in stride with Duvall’s performance. In fact, he might be the saving grace of this picture, balancing it out with real world cynicism. Neither wholly evil nor altogether good, Murray keeps his sad-eyed desires, in both paper and people, closely-guarded with his disarmingly genuine performance as the funeral party's organizer. It’s a genius stroke of casting and Murray, delivering a one-two punch of natural exactness, is operating as both the dollar-grabbing scoundrel and the desperate humanity of the narrative, saving the picture from being all too cutesy with his wiseass Chicago quips.
While the movie might belong to Duvall and Murray, Black and Spacek provide some clever and soft-spoken support along the way. Black’s role as Buddy, a family man and the only person Bush trusts with his money, is operating as the audience’s identifier between the two other men; he’s the grounding agent. Black is also the missing link Bush needs in fitting into a town that pretty much hates him. Spacek, in her first time sharing the screen with Duvall, navigates her way around both Murray and Duvall, revealing a softer and intriguing side to both men. Full of grace, Spacek sells the frustration her character feels with an elegance missing in most modern day actresses.
Yet it is the cinematography of David Boyd (previously of Firefly and Deadwood fame) that breathlessly steals the beauty of this film, yet also gives it its only weakness: pacing. Boyd’s camera lingers beautifully over everything zapping the film of much needed energy. Both haunting and romantic, the camera is effective in capturing the whimsical attitudes of the southern story too well. Get Low’s script is far too bare-boned to be so achingly rendered onto celluloid. If we had more of a development into the stories the townsfolk think they know about Bush, then perhaps we would have more of a reason to linger on certain things as there would be a certain change in its linear format. As it is, though, the camera – as rich as it is in adding texture – slows the pacing down to a noticeable speed. Sure, this doesn’t make the film any less enjoyable from a narrative construction POV, but once the turtle’s pace of the film seems much longer than its 100 minute running time, there is a problem.
Rich in premise and in rural settings, the Southern highs of Get Low might read as if straight from the imagination of Washington Irving. And like Irving, it's fanciful and learned, begging to be forgiven of its shortcomings. Yet, the ultimate strength of the picture comes from its complete study of contrasts in the roles of Duvall and Murray. While it might suffer from a lack of energy at times, the development of Get Low’s narrative will surely win over the most patient of audiences willing to listen to a good old fashioned yarn.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic material and brief violent content.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
