Directed by: David Lowery
Starring: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, and Ben Foster
Plot: A Texas outlaw escapes prison to reunite with his wife and the daughter he never met.
Review:
I was led to believe that this was going to be about a pair of outlaw lovers on the run from cops and bounty hunters, sort of like Bonnie and Clyde or True Romance, but that is only half right. In fact, that is pretty much what happens before the movie even begins, opening up with Bob (Casey Affleck), his pregnant wife, Ruth (Rooney Mara), and another buddy held up in a country house in a shootout with a bunch of lawmen outside. When there buddy gets shot down, Ruth clips one of the officers, Patrick (Ben Foster). Bob takes the blame for his pregnant wife and goes to prison, while Ruth goes home and raises their daughter.
David Lowery definitely seems to be cut from the same cloth as someone like Jeff Nichols or Terrance Malick. Just like Malick, Lowery adheres to the quiet moments and small, intimate stories set against a more epic than it needs to be setting. He saves himself from Malick’s trademark long-windedness by being just like Nichols. Lowery captures a microcosm of Southern life and gives a noir edge to this modern day tale (although this technically takes place in the ’70s) that would normally be inspired by Westerns.
Bob breaks out of prison a few years later to see the daughter he had never met and reunite with his wife, who he is still holding a flame for. And she for him. Amongst all this backwoods noir crime thriller-ness is a really strong connection between Affleck and Mara. I have never seen two people have such strong chemistry without ever really sharing the screen. You can feel Mara’s presence in Affleck’s scenes and vice versa. You almost expect for them to flash next to each other the way Tyler Durden does at the beginning of Fight Club. It’s not easy for them to reunite though. There are bounty hunter who want Bob’s head. A surrogate father who wants him gone. And a cop who wants his girl, the same one Ruth took down. Ben Foster as the cop is moving in slowly but surely, in a disarmingly charming way that it actually becomes hard for the audience to decide who Ruth should go for. It is just as hard for Ruth.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints has slightly inconsistent pacing and tone that makes it occasionally a pain in the ass to watch, but with the performances of everyone involved as well as the 1970s Texas landscape acting as its own character, there is more than enough to get invested in and interested in how it all turns out.
Rating: 8/10
What Else to Watch: Badlands, one of Terrance Malick’s earliest efforts stars Martin Sheen as a would-be outlaw who seduces a young girl played by Sissy Spacek, a direct inspiration for True Romance, although probably more for Tony Scott’s direction rather than Quentin Tarantino’s writing.
