[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down]
In theaters Friday, July 30
Oh Matt Damon: why do you keep doing this? This is one of the most talented, ambitious, and confident actors of his generation, yet he’s hampered by a pedestrian batting average whose impressive highs are buffered by such dismal lows. Often, it’s the film and not the actor that’s at fault for the failures, and this is once again the case with Stillwater: a messy and unfocused tangle of a movie made only marginally watchable because of the superb work of its lead.
When the audience meets Bill Baker (Damon) at the beginning of Stillwater, he’s working odd jobs to scrape together whatever cash he can for a trip to Marseilles. It’s been five years since the French courts upheld their murder conviction of his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), and the multiple stamps on his prison visitor card, along with his familiarity with the Marseilles Best Western hotel staff, reveal that these pond-hops are a frequent occurrence. Although he’s settled into something of a routine with his visits to see Allison, Bill’s world is rocked when he learns that there might be new evidence proving the young woman’s innocence.
Allison’s lawyer stonewalls Bill, remarking that it’s long past the time for Allison to accept the reality of her predicament, yet pappa-bear remains undeterred. Hampered by his inability to speak even a word of French, Bill enlists the help of an insanely friendly local woman, Virginie (Camille Cottin), who is also staying at Bill’s hotel and is willing to act as his translator. As days turn into weeks, Bill forms a close bond with Virginie and her daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), both of whom become something of a surrogate family for the displaced American.
When Stillwater keeps its focus on Bill’s maturation and willingness to grow into something more than an Oklahoma roughneck, the movie clicks with a rhythm that sees its characters and story moving in unified synchrony. It’s obvious that Bill’s attachment to Maya is an attempt to make up for the alcoholism and distance that plagued his relationship with Allison, and Damon’s portrayal of a man discovering (and relishing) a second chance is a strong one. If the film had set this as its magnetic north it might have come together, yet director Tom McCarthy keeps returning to the investigative elements, and Stillwater craters as a result.
Bill’s search for a young man that was present the night of the murder for which Allison has been convicted is clumsy and poorly sketched, and while that works for a bit as a component of Bill’s American exceptionalism tendencies, it’s not something he or the movie grows out of (despite some teases). For much of Stillwater, the not-particularly-interesting murder mystery surrounding Allison’s imprisonment feels like a narrative steppingstone to the real story of Bill’s midlife coming-of-age moment, and that’s when the movie is at its best. Yet McCarthy can’t seem to shake his Spotlight hangover, dipping back into the murder mystery’s fact-finding components again and again with increasingly diminishing returns.
The movie flirts with some interesting themes and details, such as Bill’s devotion to American food and hotel staples like Subway/Best Western and his refusal to learn French early in the picture. There’s a focused, powerful film buried somewhere inside Stillwater that grapples with Bill’s fatherly regrets, xenophobia, and broadening humanity as its primary focus, but as it stands, it’s of two minds. As Bill comes to know and love Maya and Virginie, he finally comes to know and love himself, and as footlong subs and Oklahoma football give way to roasted tomatoes and Marseilles soccer, the film steps out of its formulaic shadow to reach for something more. The problem is that this doesn’t last, and without spoiling anything, it should suffice to say that Stillwater doesn’t go all-in on this premise.
The script’s failures aren’t just these broad strokes, either; characters appear early on without any introduction or set-up, and the last fifteen minutes resolve things with such a hurried swipe that it feels like entire scenes are missing. Again, although Damon sells his scenes well and maintains a consistent and evolving energy throughout, he can’t patch holes the script leaves big enough to fly a passenger jet through. McCarthy makes good use of the French locales to establish a particular and unique sense of place for the film, yet since the movie doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be (an investigative drama or a midlife maturation yarn), it never feels incorporated into the story in any essential way.
And that’s too bad, truly. Matt Damon gives one of the best performances of his career in Stillwater, balancing a desperate intensity with an unwavering commitment to pent-up masculinity, yet it can’t save the larger effort from its split focus and choppy storytelling. Too many questions abound, like why Virginie would agree to take on Bill’s cause after knowing him for something like 5 minutes, or why Allison keeps antagonizing the one person trying to help her (the scenes between Damon and Breslin are…bad). Worse yet, Stillwater has an identity problem, and the fact that one of the two in question is so interesting and ultimately underserved makes that failure all the more painful. Because again, there’s a decent movie in here, one that serves its characters and the organic progression of their stories well. Perhaps with a tighter edit and a new ending that movie could have emerged, yet as it stands, all that remains is the muddied, stagnant mess that is Stillwater.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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