EIFF 2014: Joe Review

After taking an unexpected turn into slick, studio comedies, David Gordon Green made a semi-comeback to smaller, independent fare with last year’s Prince Avalanche, a film that mixed both his broad comic sensibilities with his introspective indie roots. With his latest film Joe, a richly textured rural drama, Green takes another step back to his early, artsy ones.

Another man who spends far too much time in films that are frankly beneath him, Nicolas Cage stars as the titular Joe, an ex-convict with a dark past, trying to keep a lid on his inner rage and stay on the straight and narrow. His job – poisoning weak, good-for-nothing trees to allow new, stronger ones to grow in their place – provides a heavy metaphor for the rest of the film.

Joe is approached by a teenager named Gary (Tye Sheridan) who’s new to the town and looking for work. Gary’s an earnest and hard working kid trying to look out for his ailing mother and mute sister in the face of hideous abuse from their patriarch, the vile and abusive drunk Wade (Gary Poulter).

Joe hires both Gary and Wade but while Gary impresses with his work ethic, Wade is content to sit around drinking and steal his son’s pay packet at the end of the day. Joe takes Gary under his wing and tries to look out for him the best he can without getting involved in his fractious home life but tensions rise between Joe, Gary and Wade, particularly when a wildcard is introduced in the form of Willie (Ronnie Gene Blevins), a man looking to settle a grudge with both Joe and Gary.

The film occupies the same space as the likes of Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories and Mud or Green’s own Undertow, a bleak, backwoods setting where the economy is in a mess and violence never seems too far away. The men are tough and drink too much; the women are cheap and desperate, and seemingly everyone has a snarling attack dog guarding their house. Green’s setting is remarkably textured, with the rural Texan location and the largely non-professional supporting cast lending the film a real authenticity.

At the centre of it all is Cage’s magnetic performance, a welcome reminder of just how talented he is. He might coast by on half-baked thrillers where his performances are camp fun at best but there’s a reason Cage is an Academy Award winner who is regarded as one of the best of his generation, and he shows that here.

The route Cage takes with the character isn’t what you might expect, eschewing his trademark wild-eyed freak-outs for a more restrained and nuanced turn that makes Joe a complex, fully rounded character. His dark side is evident; he drinks far too much and is on first name terms with everyone at both the local whorehouse and the local jailhouse. Nonetheless, he has a moral code that he tries to abide by and is trying to impart some of that wisdom onto young Gary, a boy in desperate need of a positive paternal influence.

Sheridan is similarly impressive. The young actor has already worked with Terence Malick (The Tree of Life) and Jeff Nichols (Mud) and is right at home in this setting. Much like in those films, his performance here is earnest, sensitive and layered, effectively conveying the problems of having adulthood forced upon you at such a young age. As Gary’s rotten father, Poulter was plucked off the streets by Green and his portrayal of a shambling, barely coherent drunk is fantastic. Poulter died a matter of weeks after the film was finished so will never know how well received his tremendous, villainous turn is.

If the film has a shortcoming, it’s the Willie character and the eventual climax that his character, along with Wade, instigates. While well played by Blevins, Willie isn’t developed enough and feels like a plot device who only exists to drive the film toward a finish that is disappointingly straightforward and predictable.

Nonetheless, Joe is an excellent return to form for Green. Perhaps his sojourn into mainstream films has given the clout and finance to attract a talent like Cage and it pays off, giving each man their best film in many years.