This is Carey Mulligan’s movie all the way. Mulligan does period pieces well, and even compares this film to Mudbound which she was so good in last year. This is actor Paul Dano’s first time directing and he wrote the script with his partner and collaborator, Zoe Kazan. It’s based on the novel by Richard Ford who wrote about his own life living in Montana when he was going through adolescence in 1960.
We spoke with Mulligan at the Chicago International Film Festival where she talked about working with Director Dano and about how women’s values have changed from then to now. There was talk of setting it in a more modern time to save money, but that was nixed.
The director uses a very theatrical approach in this portrait of a family. There isn’t a lot of action or camera movement. It’s almost a photographic portrait. The first half of the film slowly gives background on Jeanette (Mulligan), Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) and their son Joe (Australian actor, Ed Oxenbould). This is a very different role for Gyllenhaal. He’s absent for a good part of the film. The pace picks up with events that occur when he’s gone and Jeanette starts forging her own identity.
Mulligan plays the frustrated wife in the 50’s/early 60’s whose husband, Jerry has lost his job. He takes off from their home in Great Falls, Montana to find work fighting a huge forest fire. She is left to keep the home fires burning and she does, in her own way.
Their 14 year old son, Joe, frustrated and confused because of his mother’s mixed messages, bears the burden of trying to put his mother’s fires out. He misses his Dad and is worried about him. He’s also worried about the problems his mother shares with him about lack of money and their future. It’s a lot to put on an adolescent teen and the scene where he is forced to be nice to her mother’s new love interest is so uncomfortable. You feel for him.
The film is shot in muted tones except for a bright lime green dress Jeannette wears when she’s “steppin’ out” on her husband. Mulligan shows emotion seething under the surface. The rest of the visuals put the audience in a haze, much like the thick air that hangs over them from the smoke of the fires.
Oxenbould shows a lot of emotion without speaking many words. As Joe, he is trying to find some kind of safe place and it isn’t at home. He gets a job as an assistant in a photographer’s studio which seems to give him a respite from his mother’s regrets about her life and marriage. Helping take portraits of families in the photographic studio gives Joe the opportunity to see how other people live normal lives.
Mulligan plays Jeanette conflicted, wanting more for herself. She gets a job as a swimming instructor and begins a relationship with one of her students, an older man with money. It’s an awkward situation made even more uncomfortable for her son. She puts her son in the middle. When Dad calls and Jeannette asks, “ Did you have a nice talk about me? My flaws?”
How can a 14 year old possibly answer that question.
Each member of this family has their own insecurities. The script shows that this is a time when people don’t always control their own lives. They’re at the mercy of the people with money who pull the strings. They’re powerless, feel compelled to do what’s expected of them, and know their “place.” It’s restrictive.
This family is broken. When Jeannette drives Joe out to where his father is fighting the fires in the hills, she philosophizes about what happens when the fires drive the animals out of their habitats. It’s much like what happens to people except it can be money for a better life that can drive them instead of the flames. Just like all wildlife, when it gets too hot, they burn up or flee. Dano has created a period piece that is not very exciting for the first half of the film, but it does paint a picture of a time when men and women had very different roles as they just try to survive.
IFC Films 1 hour 45 minutes PG-13
