"Get Low" Review.
Robert Duvall and Bill Murray can only power the indie flick two-thirds of the way.
The latest offering from Sony Pictures Classics is one-part fable and one-part loosely based on a true-story tale of a man named Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) who threw his own funeral “party” in 1930s Tennessee while he was still alive. Get Low’s premise and cast are enough to grab interest, but to add to the mix is a dark secret that forced Bush to self-induce a hermit lifestyle for decades. And comic relief comes in the form of Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), a fast-talking funeral director, and Buddy (Lucas Black), the up-and-comer trying to balance his morals with his desire to please Quinn, make money and support his family. It’s mostly a quiet, subtle film, but it ultimately suffers from paying too much attention to its own plot.
Bill Murray is cast perfectly as the funeral director in charge of a parlor that is long past its prime. The problem? No one seems to be dying in the town as of late. Quinn opened up shop thinking it was a sure-fire business, as it is a service everyone ultimately needs. But when times are hard, Quinn and Buddy are all-too-willing to accept the unusual request laid forth by Bush. Murray plays the smooth-talker incredibly well, and it helps that he’s got material like this to work with.
“That’s one thing about Chicago – people know how to die,” Quinn comments. “They drown, get run over, shot…whatever it takes.”
Murray might have even stolen the show in any other picture, but Robert Duvall’s performance is of the caliber we have grown accustomed to with the actor. At one point in the film, Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), an old acquaintance, calls Bush “…the most interesting man I had ever met.” And Duvall sells every bit of that. Whether he’s completely silent or talking up a storm, Duvall helps create a character that is interesting every second of the way. We know he has a deeper mystery, and Duvall makes us care more and more about it any time he is on the screen. It also helps that screenwriters Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell give him great material to work with, too, such as his matter-of-fact response to someone ignoring his obvious no-trespassing sign.
“It’s a hard life if you can’t read.”
And director Aaron Schneider deserves much of the credit, as well. The film has a low-key, indie Oscar-contender sort of vibe, and every second is filmed in a way that somehow gives it great weight. For awhile, it works incredibly well and keeps viewers hooked. But when Get Low should be giving its characters breathing room to grow on the screen and simply entertain, it instead overburdens them with plot.
Whereas many college art projects abuse the abrupt ending cliché without proper reason, Get Low doesn’t quite know when to quit. It is a fantastic film 80 percent of the way, but it gets too caught up in a mystery that ultimately has a weak payoff, and focuses too much on a major event that, when we see it on the screen, doesn’t seem like much of an event at all. Instead, what we get is diarrhea of exposition, with overburdening scenes explaining away the mystery. Schneider no doubt thought the secrets needed payoff and weight, but the characters were more interesting when the mystery still existed.
Still, Get Low is a film worth watching for the incredible performances of Robert Duvall and Bill Murray, who unquestionably live up to their reputations. And it no doubt proves better fare than most of what mainstream Hollywood has or will release this year. But its aura unfortunately disappears in the third act when the nonsense takes hold, so just be warned going in that the destination isn’t quite as much fun as the journey.
2.5/5 Stars
By: Bill Jones
Posted by Ryan Peters on Aug 25, 2010 @ 9:09 am