Sometimes you miss the boat on a movie. I wasn’t enchanted by “Old Joy” when it played the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival, but it later reaped some of the best reviews of the year when it opened in New York.
Well, that’s cool. It’s nice when a tiny little film gets appreciated, and “Old Joy” is even more daring in being a near-experimental feature with minimal dialogue. But I’m still not on the boat.
The film follows an overnight road trip for two old friends in Portland, Ore., who clearly haven’t been in very close touch lately. Their lives have diverged: Mark (Daniel London) has a home and a baby on the way; Kurt (Will Oldham) is a perpetual wanderer who drifts through jobs and places.
They get in Mark’s car, break out the pot, and head into the Cascades. Not much happens over the next day and a half (and mere 76 minutes of screen time): They listen to the radio, get lost, and finally find the hot springs they were looking for.
They don’t talk much; the film is mostly made up of long silences and shots of the evergreen forest. Somewhere in the awkward silences is a friendship that ended. Mark is reluctant to engage the subject, but the needier Kurt wants to at least explore it, if not rekindle it.
The issues are melancholy, but universal. Has Mark given up on a certain lightness of spirit, or is he embracing maturity? Is Kurt a hopeful figure, or a sad case of arrested development?
The answers are not very urgent in director Kelly Reichardt’s soft, observant approach. I get the premise, and I like the idea of exploring this subject in this almost non-narrative way; I’m also intrigued by the idea of a woman director looking at the delicate business of unraveled male bonding.
But I yearned for a little more to hang a movie on. Even Gus van Sant’s “Gerry,” also an experimental feature about two guys who get lost without a plot, had more meat to chew on, and more dialogue (most people don’t get silent to cover up discomfort – they talk). Also, the casting of Will Oldham, a much-beloved cult musician, backfired for me, and made me want the camping trip to end as soon as possible.
Still, I recommend the movie to anybody willing to experiment – and to anybody who recalls aimless hikes in the Cascades. “Old Joy” suggests there’s something to be found, and lost, there.
Will Oldham and Daniel London star in “Old Joy.”
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