a SIFF 2010 review
Dynamic Get Low a Raucous Funeral Party
Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) has decided its time for his funeral. Not that he’s planning on dieing anytime soon, he just wants to make sure and have the event while he’s still alive and kicking. The old hermit wants to attend his own funeral party, inviting everyone who has something to say about him to come so he can finally hear their stories for himself.
Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek in Get Low © Sony Pictures Classics
At first funeral home owner and longtime huckster Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) isn’t sure what to make of Bush’s request. Like everyone else he’s heard tales of the strange loner living up in the Tennessee hills and he’s smart enough to be wary of him. But business is business, and with the help of his eager assistant Buddy Robinson (Lucas Black) they’re going to do everything they can think of to make sure the hermit’s funeral party is a success, even if they’re not entirely positive what success to him actually entails.
A smash at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and the popular closing night attracting at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, Get Low is the kind of raucous, thought-provoking, funny and character-driven piece of pulp entertainment audiences hardly ever get the chance to see anymore. It is a beautifully layered drama acted to perfection by its all-star cast (which also includes Sissy Spacek, Bill Cobbs and Gerald McRaney) full of vim, vinegar and wit. In short, it’s an easy movie to love, myself doing just that.
Inspired by the real Felix “Bush” Breazeale, a native Tennessean hermit who threw himself a living funeral party in 1938, the movie takes the saga of this American folk hero and transforms it into something electric. The richly literate screenplay by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond), itself drawn from an original story by Provenzano and Scott Seeke, introduces a colorfully eclectic group of characters whom even with all their eccentricities become flesh and blood entities I could understand and relate to. The emotional mystery at the film’s core is beautifully disseminated, and while what is revealed isn’t a huge surprise it is so simple and poetic I was still deeply moved when truth finally hit the light of day.
Not that this comes as a shock, Duvall is masterful as Bush. His performance is full of nuance and layers, the actor making the hermit a heck of a lot more than meets the eye. There is a hidden pain behind his eyes, a tragic hurt for which he cannot begin to forgive himself for. Yet there is also a jovial lightness to what Duvall accomplishes, a mischievous spark that parallels the misery, making Bush the kind of complicated and magnetic figure viewers are going to remember and talk about long after the picture comes to a close.
The rest of the cast is more than up to the challenge of rising to Duvall’s level. Black finally delivers on that boyhood promise hinted at so memorably in The War and Sling Blade, realizing less is more managing to hold his own even if his character is largely an observer. Spacek, a gifted former Oscar-winner who just doesn’t work near enough, makes the most of a smallish – if hugely important – part, while both Cobbs and McRaney have memorable signature bits making the most of their limited screen time.
It is Murray, however, who comes closest to stealing the picture out from underneath the feet of his Academy Award-winning costar. I never quite knew what Quinn was going to do next, never had a handle on what he was going to say or in which direction he was going to try and spin things. He constantly kept me on my toes, Murray inhabiting the man with a playful vigor that was positively infectious. In a career of superb performances deserving of acclaim and recognition ranging the genre gamut, here is another to add to his resume, my only hope being that this time Oscar doesn’t give him the cold shoulder and embraces the actor like the master thespian he has always been and continues to be.
I do find myself wishing that first time director Aaron Schneider had paced things a bit better, the film noticeably dragging a little from time to time. There are also these continuous allusions to the stories people have been telling about Bush, tall tales that have been passed down almost like mythological fables. But just when you think we’re going to hear some of them the script decides to do away with them completely, this subplot completely forgotten in the wake of the hermit’s own revelations.
As problems go these are relatively minor. Expertly scored by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (The Visitor), skillfully designed by Geoffrey Kirkland (Children of Men) and superbly photographed by David Boyd (12 Rounds) this movie both looks and sounds terrific allowing it to ooze authenticity. I really felt like I was back in the 1930’s up in the Tennessee wilds, everything about the picture so spot-on it actually kind of blew my mind.
In the end, Get Low is actors showcase. As wonderful as Provenzano and Mitchell’s script is, and as solid as Schneider’s direction ultimately proves to be, it is the work of Duvall, Murray, Black and the rest that makes this picture the dynamite attraction it is. Watching them work was pure bliss, and as far as funeral parties are concerned this one I can’t wait to be in attendance for again.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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