Ahoy, squirts! Quint here from SXSW. Today we’re going to be talking about Tim Blake Nelson’s LEAVES OF GRASS starring Edward Norton in a dual role (I think it’s in his contract these days...) playing identical twin brothers. One needed to get the hell out of dodge as soon as he could, leaving Hicksville, Oklahoma and all family behind.
He ended up becoming a University teacher and looks to be headed even further up the intellectual ladder when he gets word that his pot-dealing brother was killed.
The death of his twin brother is the only thing that could possibly drag him back to the town he tried so hard to run away from… and his brother knows this.
As you’re probably already clued in on, the pothead twin faked his death to bring his brother to town. The reasons for this are multi-tiered and I won’t go into too much detail, but the trip serves as a reminder to the teacher brother of the fulfillment of a simple, hard-working life.
Oh, and there’s tons of pot. And a Tulsa Jew drug lord, as played by one Mr. Richard Dreyfuss, pressuring Brady (the dealer brother) into going beyond his hydroponics and into the harder stuff. And there’s some radical, turn-on-a-dime tonal shifts where shit does in fact get real.
Nelson created a fantastic rural world that is both recognizable and as foreign as Mordor… or Pandora. I guess I better upgrade my geek references or I’ll be left behind…
Anyway, I’ve been hearing a lot of comparisons to The Coen Bros’ work, which isn’t inaccurate, but I think paints a bit of a different picture than what Nelson actually constructed which is a movie that has one foot in a Coen-ish world filled with quirky characters and razor sharp humor and one foot in a romanticized, yet authentic view of small town Southern living.
The performances act as the glue that locks the movie into place and keeps the craziness of it from going totally of the rails. Front and center is Edward Norton adapting the two radically different personalities of Brady and Bill Kincaid.
Brady is loose with his posture and speech, with a slow, charming Okie drawl. The dude’s laid back and excitable, whereas Bill is a tight-ass, keeping his emotions on the inside. It would have been really easy for Norton to play Bill as an unlikable dickhead, but he doesn’t and that’s where the success of the relationship between these two brothers comes in.
You can see elements of Brady in Bill and vice-versa… in other words you can tell they’re siblings.
The biggest compliment I can give Norton is that after a few minutes I stopped looking for the effect whenever they were both in the same shot and just accepted Brady as his own character. That sounds easy, but it’s tough to pull that off especially for an audience now weaned on DVD extra features and thorough behind the scenes books.
Brady’s lady is played by the always adorable Melanie Lynskey, a Kiwi who is also able to slip on an authentic and charming Southern accent, another feat that seems damn near impossible in the business for some reason. Case in point: any episode of True Blood.
Instead of being the typical trailer couple Nelson opted instead to avoid cliché and stereotype and instead focus on what these two mean to each other as human beings. She brings out the best in Brady and as the movie spirals into darker territory you understand why his character is so desperate to be out from under Dreyfuss’ thumb.
Bill doesn’t have his Melanie Lynskey at the beginning of the movie. It’s his familial relationships that give us a peek behind the stony exterior. First it’s his brother and his brother’s family, then it’s his reunion with his estranged mother, played by Susan Sarandon.
Those scenes are great, Sarandon trying desperately to reach out to her son, but not fully succeeding. I think Sarandon is in this flick more than she’s in The Lovely Bones… She gives a great complexity to this woman, both hurt, but strong at the same time.
However it’s Keri Russell’s noodling girl next door named Janet that really breaks through to Bill. Like every other character, Nelson made sure that Janet wasn’t a standard southern belle or tomboy. She’s somewhere in-between and what Kerri brings to it is a relaxed confidence that makes her damn near irresistible. Let’s face it, Kerri Russell has always been a beautiful woman, but there’s something with just how laid back she is here that she’s graduated to a whole new level.
So, the long and short of it is that Tim Blake Nelson delivered a sharp, funny and emotional flick that isn’t the typical studio comedy. I’d wager one of his goals was to give us something we’re not used to, something a little different, but of quality and that’s what he gave us. With the help of a fantastic cast, a strong script and a good sense of visual storytelling Nelson again proves he’s just as capable behind the camera as he is in front of it.
Still got a few SXSW reviews to get through before I can put this coverage to bed, but there aren’t all that many left. Keep an eye out!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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