While this is an American indie film drawing a lot of praise
from a variety of film circles, many claiming it is reminiscent of other
coming-of-age films like Ken Loach’s KES (1969), Rob Reiner’s STAND BY ME
(1986), Harmony Korine’s GUMMO (1997), David Gordon Green’s George
Washington (2000), or Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ THE KINGS OF SUMMER (2013), all
of which is pretty hefty acclaim that the film doesn’t really live up to. Perhaps people are starved for a return to
that style of American indie filmmaking, or perhaps it’s a welcome shift from
the ordinary and mundane commercial filmmaking that critics wish to
support. In any course it’s a
distinctive style, even austere by indie standards, dark and foreboding
throughout, where the undercurrent threat of dread is everpresent, where one
might conjure up thoughts of Michael Haneke having had a hand in producing
this morbid little film. However, purely
in terms of setting a distinctly creepy tone, it doesn’t stand up to the more
uniquely original style of edgy Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté in Vic +
Flo Saw a Bear (2013), which is more horrifyingly tragic in an adult
sense. Arkansas born Jeff Nichols
remains the current American indie standard bearer with films like SHOTGUN
STORIES (2007) and Mud (2012),
both showing kids at different ages, where all his films express a rare transcendent
poetry. While others may attribute those
qualities to this film, that’s actually what’s missing in this film, which
feels overly predicable even from the opening shot that shows a Darwinian
universe in play. Carbone is a graduate
of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he broke into the film
business as a cinematographer in various short films, also Matthew Petock’s initial
feature A LITTLE CLOSER (2011), a rural Virginia family drama that also drew
similarities to David Gordon Green, Paste
Magazine [Curtis Woloschuk], “employing similarly lush lensing courtesy of
Daniel Patrick Carbone but dispensing with the overt lyricism.” Petock is the script supervisor of Carbone’s
directorial debut, where both films, interestingly enough, examine the dynamics
between two brothers hanging around on the outer fringes of society.
Caught up in the atmospheric enthrall of its own established
rhythm and mood, the film takes place on the outskirts of a seemingly idyllic
American town, an undeveloped stretch of woods and open space that for all
practical purposes has been deserted, leaving it prime turf for young boys to
explore in their daily adventures, where they’re often seen just aimlessly
wandering around in the woods. In this
way, they have a reclusive habitat of their own to retreat to where no adult supervises
or stands watch over them. At ages 14
and 9, brothers Eric (Nathan Varnson) and Tommy (Ryan Jones) have free reign to
roam, often seen both on the same bike, occasionally playing with one of
Tommy’s friends, Ian (Ivan Tomic), or part of a boy collective in an open field
where all the adolescent boys in the region apparently gather to loosely form a
circle while two supposed equals pair off and fight one another, with
appropriate rabid encouragement. This
rite of passage becomes part of the underlying theme of the film, especially
when these kids constantly get themselves into endless trouble. What strikes one about these kids is the
typical bullying tactics of older brother Eric, but he takes it to another
level, escalated by signs of danger everywhere, including the decaying remains
of birds, cats, and dogs, where the kid’s fascination with dead things becomes
part of their banal existence. After an
argument with his Dad (Colm O’Leary), where Ian is caught showing Eric and
Tommy his Dad’s gun, his Dad’s irate response sends Ian deep into the forest
where his body is discovered shortly afterwards lying at the bottom of a bridge.
With an eerie sound design by Chris
Foster and Peter Townsend, cinematography by Nicholas Bentgen, and original
music by Robert Donne, the established mood is one of menace and horror, where
this isn’t the lyrically gorgeous world of David Gordon Green, but one that
lingers in dark murky waters.
Neighborly hostilities with Ian’s Dad escalate to near
psychotic proportions, where Eric criminalizes his anger, becoming something of
a danger to himself and others with his explosive outbursts, initially leaving
a dead cat on the doorstep after believing his dog was stolen, eventually
breaking into the neighbor’s house and trashing it, where underlying this
seething rage are suicidal thoughts of self-loathing, even pointing a rifle in
his own brother’s face, often threatening to dangle him off the same bridge
where his friend died, where Eric has this idyllic pastoral world at his
disposal but hates his existence. While
there may be homoerotic undertones built into the internalized anguish and
tension, the absence of girls seems a glaring oversight, as one can only
imagine how some of this crude, anti-social hostility might play out with the
opposite sex. Distrust, lack of
communication, alienation, rage, no moral boundaries, and teenage morbidity
seem to drive this film deeper into the restless unease of male
adolescence. The question is whether a
reliance on moodiness can sustain the overall tension without veering into
horror territory, where the emotional void leaves the lives of these kids
fairly undeveloped, often appearing coldly uninteresting, as they are so
self-absorbed, where they could give a crap about others. Carbone, however, never figures out where to
go with this kind of bleak, fatalistic view bordering on nihilism, as jail
time, for one, certainly comes to mind, but the director is not interested in
existing realities. Instead he harbors a
kind of mythical innocence bordering on fantasy, believing that behind the
hooliganism, suicidal tendencies, and reckless death threats, there’s the
potential for goodness in each of these boys.
Incredibly, that is the Father Flanagan message in BOYS TOWN (1938), as
each boy has their own moral cross to bear, and whether resorting to dreams,
mythical reality, or simply an unorthodox turn in the minimalist narrative, the
director, who also writes, produces, and edits this film, insists upon a
contrived redemption, even if it never for a second feels believable or
well-deserved.
