Thursday, August 26, 2010

A movie review: Get Low (2010)


Get Low (2010)

Director - Aaron Schneider
103 min; PG-13
Cast
Robert Duvall - Felix Bush
Lucas Black - Buddy
Sissy Spacek - Mattie Darrow
Bill Murray - Frank Quinn

A very good reason for you to see the new film Get Low is that it will make you smile inside and out. I don't know if you need much more of a reason to want to see it, but if you do, see it because this is a fun performance to watch by Robert Duvall as a 1930s Tennessee hermit (Felix Bush) based very loosely off a real life character of similar folklore. I'm not sure any molds have been broken by this performance, but at his age it just feels good to see Duvall command an entire movie the way he does, really becoming this character and making it very difficult for you to take your eyes off of him, not that it is something you would do.

Yes Bill Murray is in this film, as a funeral home owner who accepts the strange request of Mr. Bush to throw a funeral party for him while he is still alive so that he may attend it himself, but this is in no way a Bill Murray movie. What I mean is, I think he does a pretty good job of showing a complex man played simply, but he really is a supporting character in the film, and at times he feels out of place in a 1930s small town setting. It doesn't detract for me though, and I like his performance as a man who is probably running from his own demons, but we never really know.

It is Lucas Black and Sissy Spacek who fill most of the screen time besides Duvall, and as Murray's funeral parlor assistant and the old hermit's long ago girl, the two do very good jobs at holding the story together at appropriate times and reminding us there is a world outside of that of Felix Bush.

There isn't a whole lot to tell about the movie, for it is actually quite simple, and I'll go ahead and leave it at that. It's not going to overwhelm you and maybe you won't be talking about it like something else you have seen, but I think the story of a man who falls so far and ultimately has the chance to rise again is timeless, and in the hands of a master such as Duvall it comes together very nicely in this film.

**** out of 5

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