Monday, March 26, 2007

AFI Dallas Film Fest movie review: Midlothia

Shakespeare in the field, with a Shiner-guzzling Falstaff

By John P. Meyer

I enjoyed the hell out of Midlothia, and I'm not just saying that because I'm worried that director/scripter Bill Sebastian might react to a negative review by dropping by the offices of Pegasus News World Headquarters to kick my scrawny film-reviewer ass - pinky promise!

Director Bill Sebastian

And this is a valid concern, because 1) Bill knows how to get to our offices - he hand-delivered a screener copy of the film to us for review; 2) he knows what I look like, because he handed the DVD right to me; and 3) he's a fit looking dude with an intense steely-grey-eyed gaze and at least 20 years on me (in the youthful direction); 4) and - finally - he knows how to throw a punch. I mean, you can tell that from his performance in the movie.

Even without the titular reference, no one would have had to tell me this was filmed in and around Midlothian, Texas: I recognized the profile of the TXI cement plant works from the opening credit sequence. See, if you were a North Texas fossil collector and member of the Dallas Paleontological Society for as many years as I was, you'd catch that visual reference right away, because cement quarries in our neck of the woods provide extraordinary opportunities for the collecting of Cretaceous shark teeth.

But critter remains - aside from the roadside rabbit skull picked up and conversed with by Duck (James Thomas Gilbert), Hamlet-like, on his beer-fogged hungover shuffling way to the corner store - for more beer - have little to do with this philosophical and surprisingly intelligent drama of small-town friends and lovers (and friends who want to be lovers). And, unlike the impression you might get after discovering that the action takes place in and around a double-wide trailer, there's nothing resembling blue collar comedy going on here. These troubled souls don't have a lot to laugh about.

Typical double-wide interior. I think.

That's not to say the movie isn't laden with humor, because it certainly is - primarily thanks to the wiser-than-they-oughta-be throw-off commentaries interjected by the Falstaffian Duck, who plays comedic foil to his variously frustrated, confused and self-destructive friends. The fact that Duck's good-natured loser exterior hides a complex and tragic back story builds on the Shakespearean cachet. (O.K., he's not fat like Falstaff - so sue me.)

The plot has a few surprises in store, although there's nothing earth-shattering going on (just as there's nothing earth-shattering going on in Midlothian most of the time, aside from the occasional rumble when an ANFO charge drops another section of wall into the bottom of the quarry): all the dramas chronicled here are small personal ones. Characters are the strength of the film, and we end up caring about these characters because we recognize them: we either know them, or we are them.

Stuff that typically goes on outside a typical double-wide. It seems to me.

One thing I appreciate about the script is that no drugs come into play, aside from alcohol; it must have been a temptation for director Sebastian to write Duck as a potheaded good ol' boy loser rather than a beer-swilling one, but I think the decision to leave (illegal) drugs out of it gives things a more universal appeal. While I feel certain that there are plenty of pot smokers in and around Midlothian (so no need writing in to let tell me you're out there, folks), I'm betting there are more citizens with drinking issues than smoking ones. I mean, I spent the better part of the mid-70's down at UT Austin and my encounters with pot were only sporadic. (O.K., so I was a social invalid. The point is, even amidst my un-cool circle of friends, we consumed washtubs of beer.)

Aside from the film-elevating comi-tragic performance turned in by Mr. Gilbert, other key players include triple-threat writer/director/actor Bill Sebastian, who plays the driver of dramatic events, Fred; Eric Reeves as Bill, Fred's roommate (double-wide-mate? trailer-mate? You get the idea...); and Jessica McClendon (who also had a small role in The Night of the White Pants) as April, Fred's maybe-ex-fiancée. In terms of stock characters, Mr. Sebastian's Fred is the egotistical mesomorph bastard who always gets the girl; Reeve's Bill is the brainy, sensitive guy from high school who knows how to cook and wouldn't know what to do with the girl if he got his hands on her; and McClendon's April is the kind of girl who needs to have some guy's hands on her in order to validate her existence: "The only thing I was ever good at was having a boyfriend," she explains.

The milieu of rural North Texas is portrayed spot-on: exteriors remind one of the flat expansive grasslands of Days of Heaven (which was supposed to take place in the Texas panhandle, though it was actually filmed in Alberta), while inside the trailer house we find the expected assortment of ratty sofas and chairs, cheap consumer electronics and - tellingly - an NRA small bore rifle target tacked up on the wall.

Gun handling safety rules blown all to hell.

To an old NRA-trained former boy scout like me, the pointing of various firearms at various characters during various points in the film is disconcerting, but no more so than that done in practically every movie involving the use of guns ever created; it's just that I worry in these low-budget indie situations about the gun-savvy of the crew. I mean, we all know what can happen, even on tightly-controlled Hollywood sets. Maybe the next time I talk to Bill (I mean, the real one), I'll ask him about this.

If I were going to be nit-picky about production details (which I apparently am, judging by the fact that my fingers are still typing), I'd mention that the camera cuts between conversing characters come a bit too rapid-fire and are maybe a tad loose (i.e., we catch glimpses of the out-of-focus gesturing arm of the non-speaking, behind-the-camera participant); in general, the feel of the camera work is more like that of an independent production than a high-dollar equipment-laden Hollywood thing. But that's O.K., because the core of Sebastian's picture - its pacing, its characters and its story - demonstrates the kind of talent that lacks only a deep-pockets producer to provide the final polish.

Duck prepares to duck.

With any luck, by the time he's done shopping Midlothia around, he'll have one.

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?: "What are you doin' over at my house every morning drinking incessantly?" - Fred to Duck.

"I'm getting ready for work." - Duck's reply.

ALL THIS, ACID-FREE?: "Have you ever looked with your mind for so long that your eyes stopped seeing?" - Fred to Duck, upon his return from an all-night drunk.

GRATUITOUS TARANTINO REFERENCE?: "Are you gonna kill Bill?" - Duck to Fred, after the latter loads up his shotgun with double-aught buck.

SENSITIVE NEW-AGE GUY-SPEAK?: "I don't measure my self-worth through physical strength." - Bill to Duck, re. an arm wrestling challenge.

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