The biggest strength of Tom McCarthy’s new politically charged, mystery fuelled thriller Stillwater is by far the script and that of Matt Damon’s stellar performance. These two factors as a matter of fact are so strong that the rest of the film at times does its best to make the whole affair that bit more mediocre, but fails by just how intelligently crafted and well delivered the script and lead performance are. Stillwater is a beast of a somewhat epic nature. Although it’s characters and scale are fairly minimal, and its choice repeatedly verge into the world of effective simplicity, frequently Stillwater will revel in the size of its production and the epic scale of its story-telling, with its many characters and multiple locations, aswell its length (which I feel was largely unwarranted). Tom McCarthy is a very subtle and brilliant director and although I believe his strengths can be found all over Stillwater, there are so many times where I feel Stillwater still falls short of McCarthy’s better work and I can’t really pinpoint where.
From the off-set where Stillwater will go is rather unknowable, the film intentionally drops into the middle of the life of Matt Damon’s Bill Baker, with very little knowledge or exposition. During the first half hour of the film we come to learn of certain things piece meal, rather than buffet, and bit by bit we come to learn of the damaged and intriguing tapestry or Damon’s Baker’s life. This is where McCarthy’s direction and the script by McCarthy, Marcus Hinchley, Thomas Bidegain and Noe Debre is at its absolute best. It also as its best in these earlier segments with a subtle and once again revealing political subtext, which thusly underscores the rest of the film very effectively. The film even manages to do the impossible by bringing up Trump without making me absolutely cringe by the unbearable nature of the shoe-horning. The film however does eventually give way to clichés and a serious bout of predictably, even in its ‘largest concluding reveals’. One could comment that these reveals are not meant to be huge twists and are rather gateways into an interesting moral drama, however once these elements are revealed the film is in its final scenes, hence one can’t help but look at them as failed twists. Ultimately the film rests on the shoulders of Matt Damon, very well-weathered in the worlds of stoic quiet leading men, aswell as of course his other successes with more verbally verbose parts. Here in Bill Baker we have a combination, his quite sober intensity paired with his Oklahoman folksiness allows for a textured character, who once again allows for the script to reveal itself around him, repeatedly adding new-found depth to a figure we thought we understood. Damon’s subtleties are sublime and his delivery of sub textual emotion leads certainly to the film’s most effecting moments. A terrific performance certainly worthy of all the praise he was and is receiving.
As previously mentioned the film does eventually bow down into clichés and the like, bolstered unfortunately by not too great turn by Abigail Breslin in the role of Baker’s daughter Allison. Breslin is a tough one in the case of this film, because there aren’t certain scenes where she delivers wholly believable moments of emotion, however there are repeated turns where it seems forced and fake. With the revelations we eventually learn about the character, one wonders whether this was intentional, however with further revelations about the character, we find that the role in this case is simply too complex a beast for Breslin to deliver the role it’s full potentional seemingly. The film too is overlade by a horribly over-bearing and painfully average score by Mychael Danna, to such an extent in the first 20 minutes of the film that I genuinely shook my head (despite being alone in my cinema, which is unfortunate, because this film should have a fair audience – it’s pretty good afterall). The film starts off as a rather basic thriller however reveals itself overtime to be more of a fish-out-of-water relationship and family drama, with the likes of Lilou Siauvaud and Camille Cottin delivering wonderfully dramatic and warm performances as the French folks who Bill eventually co-habitats with. They are certainly the heart of the film and offer a richness of emotion that Breslin on the other side of Baker’s plot, does not.
A sprawling 7/10 thriller, that doesn’t decide to pick a lane and rather enjoy its intentional diversions for various reasons of plot or character, I enjoyed these too as overall it made for a more in-depthful meal of a film. However despite a wonderful taut first half, with so many delicately and wonderfully delivered reveals, aswell as another incredibly focussed performance from Damon, the film can’t help but give way to a rather predictable and plodding second half, unable to maintain the precisions and elegance of its beginnings.
P.S. I like McCarthy as a filmmaker, I do, a lot. However the whole time I was just thinking about how much certain films could be better and certain films could be a lot worse in different film-makers hands. Repeatedly in this case I kept thinking about Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece (one of many) Prisoners, for obvious reasons once you’ve seen the film. I just kept thinking about how much better that film is in his hands. No shade to McCarthy, but actually, a little bit of shade.
- - Thomas Carruthers
 – Review){kind=link}
0 Comments