a SIFF 2010 review
Familiar Land Hardly a Dry Experience
James (Ryan O’Nan) is back home in West Texas. Fresh from a tour of duty in Iraq, he’s ready to get back with his fiancée Sarah (America Ferrera) and start working in her father David’s (Benito Martinez) slaughterhouse. He wants to take care of his sick mother Martha (Melissa Leo) and get his life moving in a forward direction, the bits and pieces of his life in Army ones he’d rather leave well enough alone.
America Ferrera and Ryan O'Nan in The Dry Land © Freestyle Releasing
But that’s not happening. Something happened in Iraq, something that is driving James slowly mad. Hitting the road he pays a visit to Army buddy Raymond (Wilmer Valderrama) in hopes he’ll be able to shed some light on the things he can’t bring himself to remember. Together, they decide to make the even longer trek to Walter Reed Army Medial Center to visit a fellow member of their unit, Henry (Diego Klattenhoff), James hoping that in doing so he’ll finally be able to put the demons haunting him to rest.
As first films go, The Dry Land is a pretty solid effort on writer and director Ryan Piers Williams part. While what takes place is hardly unknown (solider returns from war suffering from post traumatic stress and tries to put his life back together while those around him wonder what is going on), the filmmaker does a good enough job of marshalling his pieces is not the problem it could have been. This is a solid effort, at times even an excellent one, and while certain elements aren’t what they could be overall the final product is emotionally affecting enough to make seeking it out for a matinee or a rental worthwhile.
It helps that O’Nan, a relative newcomer who appeared in three episodes of NBC’s short-lived “Mercy,” is quite excellent as the central character James. There is a haunting ghostly pallor to him that managed to draw me in and I could feel the weight bearing down on his shoulders even as he tried to convince others it didn’t exist. O’Nan commits completely to the performance, doing his best to embody the figure down to the very last blood cell, and even if some of what he’s required to do is overly melodramatic the actor ends up making it feel believable and true all the same.
I did have problems with Ferrera’s character, however. While her performance is just fine (she’s been criminally underrated as an actress ever since her debut in Real Women Have Curves), the actions Sarah takes are ones I found completely unlikely. I just didn’t buy the choices she makes, didn’t believe she’d be so quick jump to negative judgments especially considering she’s set up as someone who loves James pretty much body and soul. She’s shockingly unsympathetic much of the time, and maybe there are scenes left on the cutting room floor that would have improved my opinion of her but be that as it may what’s presented here doesn’t give Ferrera (who also executive produces) the chance to do so.
On the flipside Williams shows remarkable restraint as a director, letting his actors live and breathe inside their characters without resorting to fancy visual shenanigans or a lot of quick unnecessary cuts. He realizes these are distractions, nothing more, and working with cinematographer Gavin Kelly (Play the Game) the filmmaker crafts a milieu that’s almost Wim Wenders-like in its hypnotic Midwestern authenticity.
There does come a point where I did feel like I’d seen far too much of this before, a couple of the final scenes echoing a similar moment in Brothers which just came out in 2009 (and was itself a remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 original). Williams comes perilously close to losing control and falling into a cesspool of melodrama so think and syrupy it’s doubtful he would have been able to drag himself out of it.
Thankfully this does not happen. O’Nan’s star making performance manages to hold things together even when the script threatens to tear them apart, while the emotional center of the picture rings with a moving truthfulness that can’t help but hit close to home. While The Dry Land doesn’t paint a picture I hadn’t already seen it did craft one I still wanted to keep looking at, and in the end it was its human story of perseverance, regret and love that held me captivated even in spite of the overwhelming familiarity.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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