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Review #131 of 365
Film: Down in the Valley (2006) [R] 125 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $6.00
Where Viewed: AMC Loews Uptown, Seattle, WA
When 1st Seen: 22 May 2006
Time: 4:45 p.m.
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DVD | soundtrack |
From the start, I'd like to say that I am a huge Edward Norton fan. He is a very versatile, incredibly emotionally available actor. He has done some great movies, and then he has done some off-beat movies. Down in the Valley would certainly fit into the latter category; and, unfortunately, in this case off-beat does not refer to Fight Club off-beat, it refers to off-the-beaten-path off-beat. While he does an incredible job portraying the ultra-confused, cowboy-wannabe Harlan Churchill Fairfax—if that is his real name, the plot of the movie has the poor guy meandering through some surreal dream world of a life that just doesn't make much sense. Worse, we have nothing but intuition to rely on when it comes to figuring out why his character is the way he is. Was he really abandoned as a child and put in foster care where he might have been abused? We don't know. For all we know, he's a kid from the valley with millionaire parents who kicked him out of the house for being too lazy or getting in too much trouble. This is a film that starts off planting a terrible feeling in your stomach and ends leaving you with one in your mind.
Harlan is wandering the valleys in LA in search of something and writing letters to someone we think might be his father named Joe about how he's doing just fine. He gets a job at a gas station which he seems to take very seriously, but not so seriously that he's willing to quit it on the spot when a station wagon full of teenagers including one young lady named October (Tobe for short), played by Evan Rachel Wood, catches his eye and invites him to go to the beach with them. Now, all along, we are never sure exactly how old Harlan is. Edward Norton is reported to be in the neighborhood of over 35 years old. Is he playing a character who's 20? 25? 30? It's not clear. He certainly could pass for someone 25, though 20 might be a stretch. So, the disparity or illegality of his actions that he succumbs to later by having intimate relations with young Tobe—who is clearly still in high school, called a minor by her father, and could possibly be 16 rather than just shy of 18 which would, at least, make her legal—is certainly up for consideration. At the beach, Harlan falls very deeply for Tobe, and she reciprocates in extremely adult ways. Obviously, she wants to prove to herself that she can handle this relationship in defiance of her father. Throughout the entire movie, we never get any answers as to the source of the bitterness in her relationship with her father, if he even is her father. David Morse, plays the character, Wade, whom both of his kids, Tobe and Lonnie (played by Rory Culkin), refer to as 'Dad' or 'my father', but there's no sign of mom, and no explanations as to what's up with this family. He is some sort of a corrections officer by day, and it's unclear what he does by night. He is very strict with his kids. At one point, Lonnie says that Wade is not his real father. There is no explanation given as to where Lonnie came from, or how he got into Wade's care. As Harlan worms his way more deeply into Tobe's life, Wade puts his foot down, though he doesn't want a repeat of "Romeo and Juliet", so he tries to do it without really doing it. Harlan tries to charm Wade into believing he only has good intentions. Of course, Wade is never aware of the full extent of even their first few days of relationship activity, or I am pretty sure he would have shot Harlan early on. As the film progresses, Harlan becomes fixated on rescuing Tobe and Lonnie from Wade's care and making their own new family. But, Tobe isn't sure she wants a life with Harlan. Hey, she's not even 18 years old and she's supposed to know what she wants in life? So, either due to mental illness, or chemically altered brain chemistry, Harlan decides to take matters into his own hands and hatches a plan to get what he wants. The events that follow were disturbing and surreal. It becomes harder and harder to feel anything but remorse and sadness for Harlan and easier and easier to hope that he will soon be at LA Country General for psychiatric evaluation.
Harlan is wandering the valleys in LA in search of something and writing letters to someone we think might be his father named Joe about how he's doing just fine. He gets a job at a gas station which he seems to take very seriously, but not so seriously that he's willing to quit it on the spot when a station wagon full of teenagers including one young lady named October (Tobe for short), played by Evan Rachel Wood, catches his eye and invites him to go to the beach with them. Now, all along, we are never sure exactly how old Harlan is. Edward Norton is reported to be in the neighborhood of over 35 years old. Is he playing a character who's 20? 25? 30? It's not clear. He certainly could pass for someone 25, though 20 might be a stretch. So, the disparity or illegality of his actions that he succumbs to later by having intimate relations with young Tobe—who is clearly still in high school, called a minor by her father, and could possibly be 16 rather than just shy of 18 which would, at least, make her legal—is certainly up for consideration. At the beach, Harlan falls very deeply for Tobe, and she reciprocates in extremely adult ways. Obviously, she wants to prove to herself that she can handle this relationship in defiance of her father. Throughout the entire movie, we never get any answers as to the source of the bitterness in her relationship with her father, if he even is her father. David Morse, plays the character, Wade, whom both of his kids, Tobe and Lonnie (played by Rory Culkin), refer to as 'Dad' or 'my father', but there's no sign of mom, and no explanations as to what's up with this family. He is some sort of a corrections officer by day, and it's unclear what he does by night. He is very strict with his kids. At one point, Lonnie says that Wade is not his real father. There is no explanation given as to where Lonnie came from, or how he got into Wade's care. As Harlan worms his way more deeply into Tobe's life, Wade puts his foot down, though he doesn't want a repeat of "Romeo and Juliet", so he tries to do it without really doing it. Harlan tries to charm Wade into believing he only has good intentions. Of course, Wade is never aware of the full extent of even their first few days of relationship activity, or I am pretty sure he would have shot Harlan early on. As the film progresses, Harlan becomes fixated on rescuing Tobe and Lonnie from Wade's care and making their own new family. But, Tobe isn't sure she wants a life with Harlan. Hey, she's not even 18 years old and she's supposed to know what she wants in life? So, either due to mental illness, or chemically altered brain chemistry, Harlan decides to take matters into his own hands and hatches a plan to get what he wants. The events that follow were disturbing and surreal. It becomes harder and harder to feel anything but remorse and sadness for Harlan and easier and easier to hope that he will soon be at LA Country General for psychiatric evaluation.
"This is a film that starts off planting a terrible feeling in your stomach and ends leaving you with one in your mind."
When describing the job that Writer/Director David Jacobson did with this film, I would say he did a great job with the imagery. There is a constant contrast between old-time values and the use of the land and what humans have done to it in creating Los Angeles (example: blue skies above blocked from view by 30 foot-high ribbons of highway overpasses). Harlan himself with cowboy boots and hat, sir and ma'am, and spouting of traditional values of honor and respect, points to a time when life was simpler and more real and yet he faces the harsh reality of life today where you need a career and a place to live and a way to support yourself—you cannot just wander the prairie eating rabbits and playing the guitar. Mr. Jacobson did a very good job getting really good performances out of his cast. Even young Rory Culkin did a great job as he too falls in love with the notion of having Harlan in his life as a big brother or father-figure. Where he did not do such a good job, however, was in either giving better clues or filling in the blanks as to what on earth was really going on with Harlan, why Tobe was the way she was; and, ultimately, why Wade was the way he was as well. I am not the kind of person who thinks you should have to read a book before you will understand a movie. Yet, that might have helped in this case. There were too many unanswered questions, steps that characters took for unknown reasons, and an incredibly tragic ending that leaves you just wanting to get out of the theatre as soon as possible. In the end, this movie fits into the category of 'tragedy without reason', and I am not a huge fan of films of that nature as much as I respect the people that make films of this type. Perhaps I missed something. I don’t mean to dismiss the film out of hand, it just didn't work well for me.
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Down In The Valley [DVD](2005) DVD
Movies Starring: Edward Norton • Evan Rachel Wood • David Morse
Rory Culkin • Bruce Dern • Elizabeth Peña
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