Another week, another critically acclaimed American indie movie has been released. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, director David Lowery has been garnering comparisons to Terrence Malick in a lot of reviews. That comparison is immediately borne out in the opening soft focus / magic hour scenes of rural American life. Fortunately, the Malick film that this can be most compared to is his debut ‘Badlands’ rather any of his later, more pretentious, movies.
Casey Affleck stars as a Texan outlaw, Bob Muldoon, who instigates a robbery that ends up in a gunfight with the police. His girlfriend, Ruth Guthrie, played by Roony Mara, initially appears to be opposed to Muldoon’s life of crime, but she is caught up in the gunfight and shoots a local cop, Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster). Muldoon confesses to the shooting and is jailed, whilst a pregnant Guthrie is acquitted. Four years pass, and, as Guthrie and Foster become friends and potentially more, Muldoon breaks out of prison and heads to their small town to re-unite with Ruth.
For the most part, this film moves at a slow pace, with long periods that have minimal dialogue, interspersed with moments of violence. The success of it is therefore is reliant on the aforementioned beautiful cinematography, a great percussive score and the faultless performances. Affleck is building up an impressive body of work and his performance here is reminiscent of the one he delivered in ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’.
Foster excellently manages a tricky task of portraying a tough but tender and vulnerable cop, whilst wearing a truly horrible moustache! Keith Carradine provides a small but telling performance of a mysterious shop owner who seems to have raised both lead characters and may have steered them into being criminals.
However, its is Mara’s film. The darling of the American critical establishment after a small but telling role in ‘The Social Network’ and a major part in the US remake of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (though in my mind Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish original is far superior), I was unconvinced by her initial career moves. But, after impressing in ‘Side Effects’ earlier this year, and now dazzling in this film as a loving mother conflicted by her love for her boyfriend and her need to provide a better life for her young daughter, I am converted! Hopefully, a second Oscar nomination will come her way in the new year.
I recommend seeking this one out at the cinema, and, in case you were wondering about the title, there are no hidden meanings. According to the director, who also wrote the screenplay, it is just a misheard lyric from an old country song that he felt seemed appropriate to use.