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| Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender in Slow West |
A young, impressionable teenaged boy Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee, the lead boy from Let Me In, as well as the recent Australian mini-series Gallipoli), smitten with a girl Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius) older than he, treks all the way from their native Scotland to find her in the old American West all in the name of love. Along the way, he meets an outlaw Silas Select (Michael Fassbender) who agrees to be his guide. There isn’t much more that can be said without spoiling the plot, other than there being a host of idiosyncratic characters—bounty hunters, Native Americans, gun-crazy settlers, orphans, and a shopkeep—fill the plains, wooded campfires, and log cabins of this American frontier. The main story is augmented by flashbacks to Jay’s backstory with Rose depicting the deepness of the protagonist’s ardor, adding a poignancy to the climax. As well, the ongoing wars of the Great Plains often slip into frame and offer a refreshing reality which pairs well with the mountainous backdrops. Needless to say, there is no sparing of blood, as the body count quickly piles up.
John Maclean, in his feature debut (he made music videos for his own musical group, The Beta Band), uses Fassbender in a rustic voiceover narration that doesn’t dilute the proceedings too much, but certainly reveals a deficiency in the storytelling, as the device is used to carry a large amount of the weight of his arc. The softening of the jaded Silas in less than 90 minutes is loudly ill-conceived. Therein lies one of the film’s weaknesses, coupled with an ending that can be construed as contrived. While the story isn’t very substantial, and the characters perhaps even artificial, its sins are rather forgivable and the whole venture adds up to an end product which I best can describe as harmless and charming, at worst. The lines are rather economical and hold their own trite, if not wise punch. The plot itself is lined with a string of twists, and ambles on at a leisurely, yet entertaining pace. Jed Kurzel’s memorably quirky score follows the scenes along, while summoning the spirit of Carter Burwell.
Frankly, most of the artistic and technical aspects are reminiscent of an early Coen brothers film. The overall whimsy of the tone is efficiently executed in a streamlined plot full of dialogue that could also be described as simple and thoughtful. The cast includes the minimally utilized Ben Mendelsohn as a subtly played villain, as well as a slew of actors adding a variety of offbeat flavors. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who evocatively lensed North Yorkshire backdrops for Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, uses his talent equally in Canterbury, New Zealand to recreate 18th-century Colorado. From the economical, yet precise cuts, to the distinct point-of-view, to the eccentric personalities, Maclean has captured True Grit by way of Raising Arizona.
Slow West debuted at Sundance winning the World Cinema Dramatic Award and made its way across various international film festivals. With a U.S. internet release, its actual theatrical release has been pretty disappointing having not even made $0.25M in only three weeks of release. The 72 MetaCritic rating is rather unfortunate, which sadly consists of two red reviews, one from Kyle Smith (humorless as usual), and Godfrey Cheshire (who is strangely preoccupied with the lack of historical accuracy and had difficulties with suspension of disbelief). Debuting at SFF this weekend, and having opened in New Zealand last month, it will continue its international rollout in June.
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