GET LOW (Sony, 2009) D: Aaron Schneider, w/ Robert Duvall, Bill Murray. Rating: NNNN DVD package: N Rating: NNNN
An unconventional, character-driven story, a dream cast who make the most of meaty roles, and beautiful painterly lighting easily overcome Get Low’s pedestrian pace to deliver a memorable, resonant drama.
In 1930s Tennessee, Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), 40 years a hermit and the subject of nasty rumours, comes to town to arrange an unusual funeral party for himself: he wants it while he’s alive so he can hear what people say about him. Failing undertaker Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) and his young assistant (Lucas Black) hop to it, unaware of the crime and betrayal that await them.
Duvall plays Bush in a simple, straightforward manner, but he comes across as a complex, conflicted and very smart man in his scenes with Murray and Sissy Spacek, who plays a woman from Felix’s past. A faint strain of Southern Gothic bubbles beneath the unforced humour but never gets too strong. The characters act more from their best impulses than from their worst.
Nobody has anything interesting to say on the commentary that the director and producer share with Duvall and Spacek, who barely speaks at all.
EXTRAS Three making-of docs, cast Q&A, more. Widescreen. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese audio. English subtitles.
