SWEET VIRGINIA
US/ Canada, 2017, 93 minutes, Colour.
Jon Bernthal, Christopher Abbott, Imogen Poots, Rosemarie De Witt, Odessa Young.
Directed by James M. Dagg.
Sweet is not exactly the word that comes to mind throughout this film. The title, in fact, refers to a motel in a remote Alaskan town (although the film takes full advantage of beautiful mountain scenery, photographed in the town of Hope, Canada). And, as regards Virginia, the central character plays an old rodeo rider, now injured and retired to Alaska, who had some success, as we see in flashbacks, in Roanoke, Virginia.
This is a film about moral decline in a small American town. It is something in the vein of the popular film noir of the 1940s, much of the action taking place in dark surroundings.
The film opens quite strikingly with a man arriving at a diner to join his two friends and a card game. Normal enough, phone calls to wives, everything quiet. A stranger then arrives, even though the diner is closed, and demands a meal. He identifies the manager of the diner. He does go out, but returns with deadly results.
As the film proceeds, we see his connection to quite a number of other people in the town. There are secrets and lies, there are fidelities and infidelities, there is ordinariness, there is malice, there is love and there is hate.
The rodeo rider, Sam, played by Jon Bernthal, now manages a motel where the stranger is staying and begins a friendship with him. This is in contrast with another resident of the motel subject of complaint about noise who is a violent man and bashes Sam.
It emerges that the stranger, Elwood (Christopher Abbott in a truly sinister role, psychopathic, heartless, yet sentimental in phoning his mother) is a hitman employed for the initial violence in the film. We are also introduced to two of the wives of the men dead in the diner, Imogen Poots as a young woman in an unhappy marriage, Rosemarie de Witt also in an unhappy but longer marriage, in a relationship with Sam.
It will emerge that Sam is to be the hero of the film even though he limps with his bad leg, is getting older, loses out in fights. But, he is sincere in his relationship with the widow, which comes to a head when masked robbers invade her home.
There are sympathetic characters at the motel, the older manager and a young woman for whom Sam is the father-figure, (Australian Odessa Young).
While some audiences may find the film more than a touch dour and prefer not to enter into this kind of moral decline, those who want an interesting drama with well-delineated characters, will find it interesting and different in its way.
1. The title? The irony of ‘sweet’? Memories of sweetness in the rodea in the past?
2. The location, the town in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies photography? The mountains, the water, the train tracks? The streets, the diner, motels, homes? The musical score?
3. 21st-century film noir? The opening, night, driving, the diner, the playing cards? The three men, the phone calls, wives? The stranger, the diner shut, Mitchell and the confrontation, the stranger leaving, the return, the shooting?
4. Sam, his dreams, the rodeo, his style, the fall, injury, the lame leg? The photo, the poster from Roanoke, Virginia? The recurring dream? From Virginia to Alaska?
5. Sam and his life, the motel, Rose and her work, his relationship with Maggie, talking with her, taking her to the sports fixture, the father figure? The noisy client, complaining, bashing Sam? The meeting with Elwood, his staying at the motel, Sam going to the diner with him, the conversation? His relationship with Bernie, the visits, the effect? Her longing for the relationship, his reaction, his departure from the house, the phone call, her injury, his comforting her? The confrontation with Elwood, the shooting of the man, seeing blood on his shirt, the gun? The end with Bernie?
6. Elwood, enigmatic, the hitman? The callousness of his killing? Meeting Lila on the bridge, her employing him, the money difficulties, his threats? The encounter with Sam, the pie, talking about his mother? His sentimental phone call to her? The continued threats to Lila? The news about Bernie’s safe, the young man with him, the masks, intruding in the house, the deaths? Leaving, blood on his shirt, Sam and the confrontation, the rifle, his death?
7. Lila, her life, the plot, antagonism towards her husband, his fears? Meeting Elwood on the bridge? Avoiding him, finding him at the diner? Arrest, going to prison? The friendship with Bernie, the drinks, watching videos together?
8. Bernie, marriage, failed, the death of her husband, her affair with Sam, the intruder in the house, the attack, the death of the intruder, hospital? The end with Sam?
9. Maggie, young, at the motel, school, devotion to Sam, father figure?
10. The picture of evil, a town in decline – and the possibility of healing?
