MOVIE REVIEW

Levity  (2003)

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman
Director: Ed Solomon

Rating: R

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

Review Posted: 4.04.03

Spoilers: Minor

Reviewed by Sara Michelle Fetters

"No Lightness to Levity"

Manual Jordan (Billy Bob Thornton) doesn’t want redemption. After serving 22-years for murdering young convenience store clerk Abner Easley during a late-night robbery, he doesn’t even want let out of jail let alone anything resembling forgiveness. Murder has changed Manual, and the face of the life he’s taken bedevils his every moment.

The parole board sees differently, however. Manual has been a model prisoner for over two decades seemingly rehabilitated from his crimes. Despite his pleas to remain behind bars, Manual is thrust back out into the world he was separated from as a teenager and somehow must find a way to make a new life living in the shadow of what he’s done.

Soon, Manual is back home prowling the inner city streets of his youth. He’s drawn to Adele Easley (Holly Hunter), Abner’s sister, following her through the crowded streets as she does her daily shopping. Afraid to approach her, he’s sure that at some point he needs to come clean with the woman about who he is and what he’s done, no matter what the consequences to his own life.

During his late night prowls around the city a desolate pay phone rings out in the darkness. Intrigued, Manual answers the phone and a raspy voice instructs him to come to a local community center. Once there he comes into contact with Miles Evans (Morgan Freeman), a preacher watching over the center. Located next to a popular nightclub, Miles offers free parking to the wealthy youth that frequent it in exchange for fifteen minutes of their time to listen to his preaching. A keen eye for detail, the preacher knows right off Manual is in need of a job and a direction – and is also more than likely an ex-con – so he offers him room and board in exchange for his services as a janitor.

This puts the haunted former inmate in direct contact with youth of all stripes, from the very rich to the very poor. It is here he meets Sofia (Kirsten Dunst), the messed up daughter of a once-famous pop singer. Suddenly, Manual is not only trying to look out for her well being but he’s also becoming friends with Adele and her gang-banging son. Still not wanting to actively seek redemption or forgiveness, Manual realizes he may have no other choice as he tries to help this trio while also trying to deal with the advice and orders of the secretive Miles.

Levity marks the directorial debut of Men in Black writer Ed Solomon. This year’s opening night attracting at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie is dark and moody, full of a deep pathos that – at times – is potently affecting. But it’s also a slow-moving muddle, Solomon unable to find a focus to his lead character that’s consistently engaging.

It doesn’t help that Thornton’s central performance is such a droopy drag. The actor has played this sort of character too many times, most recently to perfection in Monster’s Ball. It’s a recycled portrait and Thornton doesn’t ever engage the sympathies or the emotions that Solomon’s script so evidently call for.

It doesn’t help that, once things get rolling, there aren’t any surprises lying around in Levity. When the actual identities of some of the shadier characters are ultimately revealed, even half asleep I was still able to clearly know their secrets long before the screenplay wanted to share that information. And, while Hunter and Thornton share a gentle chemistry, their whole relationship was just too creepy for me to really ever get completely drawn into it. As to her son, he’s too much of a creep to elicit real sympathy, and while it is true the teenagers do believe they know it all Solomon relies far too much on circumstance and coincidence in ultimately bringing these characters to their resolutions.

There are still things to cheer about in Levity. Chiefly, Dunst continues to grow as an actress. In many ways, this is only her second adult – granted she’s a young adult – portrayal and first since her excellent work in The Cat’s Meow and she’s wonderful to watch here. It’s easy to see what drew her to the role; it’s such a huge departure from her damsel-in-distress hysterics in last summer’s smash Spider-Man. In fact, it is turns in small films like this that Dunst keeps proving herself time and time again making me sure she is going to be around for a long, long time.

Freeman is also quite good in his limited screen time, more than making up for his over-the-top antics in Lawrence Kasdan’s Dreamcatcher. Miles is a rascal and secretive knave, but he’s also got an eye for a good soul. And while his own might not be as clean as he would like it to be, he’s pretty sure Manual’s got more than the right stuff to put things – if not right – to at least a better end than what he found them in.

I also liked how Solomon uses the dead Abner to silently stalk Manual throughout Levity. Hiding amongst crowds or staring at him through a window, the former convict sees his victim’s face almost everywhere. Yet, Abner isn’t so much haunting Manual as trying to lead him somewhere, maybe to a hopeful place he’s not yet felt he’s deserved to know. Their moment on top a snow-covered bridge is one of the most affecting of this young year, revealing the potent face of a film that should have been.

Also, the director has brought together some expert craftsman to help him find his way through his directorial debut. Central among them is cinematographer Roger Deakins (The Man Who Wasn’t There). He shoots Montreal with a gritty worldliness that’s far more affecting than any of the performances, making the snow-covered landscape a cold and dirty universe to be cascading through. I was most struck by how different Deakins style was here in comparison to his last major film shot amongst a snowy backdrop, the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. In that film the pristine whiteness was a startling backdrop to the dirty dealings of the characters inhabiting the movie. In Levity, even the snow is brown and without clarity, as if it, too, was taking on the shadings of the souls walking messily through their lives in the film.

Still, it’s impossible to not look at Levity as a promising "nice try" for Solomon. An eye for detail and character, he still can’t bring much in the way of forward momentum or originality to the film. Even the movie’s title, Levity, reeks of idiomatic pretension. As a man searches for light in a world he feels he’s only filled with dark, I found myself checking the time on my watch more than caring about his journey. Winning moments aside, that fact alone makes Levity far from a pilgrimage to happiness.

Rating: 2 out of 4

TOP