$5 A DAY
US, 2008, 90 minutes. Colour.
Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, Sharon Stone, Amanda Peet, Peter Coyote, Dean Cain.
Directed by Nigel Cole.
$5 a Day is a road trip across the United States, a father and son travelling together. (This is not dissimilar to the 2004 film Around the Bend where Christopher Walken again plays a father, travelling with Josh Lucas and his son across America.)
Walken plays a conman drifter who is alienated from his son. He is a hustler and his son has fallen victim to one of his father’s plans and has spent time in jail. The son is also engaged to a girlfriend who decides to leave him. However, during the trip he phones her and leaves messages, gradually revealing more about himself.
In the supporting cast are Sharon Stone doing her sexy bit yet again, and Peter Coyote as a fickle friend of Walken. Dean Cain has a cameo role in an amusing sequence where Walken gatecrashes a society function.
The film was directed by Nigel Cole, the English director of such films as Saving Grace, Calendar Girls and Made in Dagenham. He also made the American comedy A Lot Like Love.
Walken does variations on his usual performances, always very effective. Alessandro Nivola is very good as the son – playing a kind of straight man to his comic father.
The film shows the development of the relationship, the father becoming slightly more honest (in a deceiving kind of way) and the son finding his own identity.
1. The blend of comedy and drama? Fathers and sons, tense relationships, understanding, reconciliation?
2. The film as a road movie, the range of locations, the Midwest, Texas, New Mexico?
3. The title, the conmen, Nat and his ability to survive on five dollars a day – and the devices he used to do this?
4. The introduction to Flynn, as checking out the restaurant, cleanliness, the bribe, his relationship with Maggie, her walking out? The news about his being in prison, his being fired?
5. His attitude towards his father, discussing his father with Maggie, the news that his father was dying, need for a special treatment, going to Atlanta?
6. The visit to his father, Christopher Walken’s style as Nat? Proposing the journey? Flynn’s reluctance but going? The car?
7. The lies and cons along the way – crashing the party, Nat and his bravado, sitting at the table, eating the food, pretending to be a salesman, the response of Rick Carlson? His being unmasked, the confrontation in the kitchen? His comments about the party to Carlston’s wife? Getting away with things? His charm? Finding the house to let, staying the night, meeting the real estate lady, carrying off the pretence that he was inspecting it? Going to the hotel, getting the meal to be served at the door of a room, his taking it away and eating it? The effect on Flynn?
8. The back-story, Dolores as Flynn’s babysitter? Her knowledge of what happened in the past? Giving some information to Flynn? Her relationship with Nat? Nat and his alleged impotence, being cured?
9. Nat and his going to visit Burt Kruger? The confrontation in the office? The political campaign? The discussion, the truck, the money? Flynn and his reaction? Going to give the money back? The fact that Kruger was his father? The role of his mother? His finding his true self – and announcing to the assembled rally that Kruger was a crook?
10. Nat, his death?
11. Maggie, the various phone calls throughout the film, Flynn revealing his story? Maggie coming to be with Flynn? Getting Nat’s ashes? A future for Flynn? Understanding his father, free of his father?
12. An eccentric gallery of character portraits?
