Joe
(2013)
(SPOILERS) We live in heady days, those of us who are
Nicolas Cage aficionados. So many lousy movies, so little time. Recently he
starred in a fully-fledged Christian movie. One can surmise from this that it
can only be a matter of time before his accountant persuades him to make the
latest Uwe Boll masterpiece. Occasionally though, just occasionally, a picture
pops up featuring Nic that is actually really good, that reminds us of the
pre-action movie era Cage. It happened with Bad
Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans (as giddily deranged as anything he’s
done) and it’s happened again with Joe.
Even his hairpiece is less invasive than usual.
That might be because a mighty beard offsets it. Cage plays the titular Joe. He’s an ex-con who
ploughs a living by supervising the poisoning of trees. Having done so, the lumber
company is then legally entitled to chop them down (they’ll be dead; even Joe’s
straight-and-narrow existence is based upon destructive acts). He drinks a lot,
smokes so much he’s afflicted by a hacking cough that sounds like it’s on the
verge of turning into something much nastier, and spends much of his time
attempting to keep a lid on the barely suppressed rage that lurks within. When he
vents, it leads to bar fights and showdowns with cops. Joe keeps a nasty great bulldog tied up
outside his house that seems to symbolise the restrictions that bind him,
barely, to his daily grind (and very tellingly, when he lets the dog off the
leash, the results are bloody).
But those who know and like Joe swear by him, and he does
right by his day labourer work party. Joining the crew is Gary (Tye Sheridan,
whose hit ratio is three for three with this, Tree of Life and Mud),
who has recently arrived in the impoverished town with his sister, mother, and
abusive alcoholic father Wade (Gary Poulter, a homeless man and novice actor
whom director David Gordon Green found and cast; Poulter died a couple of
months after filming). Both these characters live in raw worlds filled with violence,
and Joe gradually becomes something of a foster parent and warped role model to
Gary. He promises to sell him his car and offers broke-backed wisdom that
involves drinking and driving and how to hit on girls through cigarette lighter-flicking
prowess.
Joe’s dilemma is whether or not to turn the other cheek when
it comes to Wade’s treatment of his son. He allows some-time girlfriend Connie (Adrienne
Mishler) to stay with him when her domestic situation turns abusive (she
eventually leaves, because he cannot make the room for her emotionally, cannot
escape the rigid cell he has made for himself, cannot see any point to any of
it),; she blanches at his attitude to Gary’s welfare, but he is well aware that
if pushed he will barrel over the edge (“I
know what keeps me alive is restraint”).
We see this on several occasions. Ronnie Gene Blevins’
Willie-Russell (a tremendous portrayal of cowardly machismo, whose favourite
anecdote about going through a windshield is appropriately curtailed on the
last occasion he trots it out) takes a pot-shot at Joe following a bar fight,
and on the next encounter Joe can barely summon the self-control to stop
himself from thrusting a broken beer bottle in Wille-Russell’s face. Later Joe
rages at an over-zealous cop, disarming him and taking him in a neck hold. As
kindly sheriff Earl (A J Wilson McPhaul) tells him, he acts like he wants to go
back inside. And maybe part of him does. It’s why, when events inflame, there’s
a sense of inevitability to Joe’s fate.
Sheridan seems to have cornered the market in sincere but
turbulent young southern angst, and his performance here is utterly naturalistic.
Indeed, so is Poulter’s (who was also an alcoholic); there are no joins to be
seen. The consequence is that their performances are more powerful and
engrossing than Cage’s, good as he is. Wade might be the most horrifyingly
twisted, eaten away depiction of (lack of) fatherhood the screen has seen in
many a year; certainly in the blithe conviction with which he is portrayed.
We
think Wade can’t get any worse when he beats a homeless booze hound’s skull to
a pulp, but that’s before he pimps his daughter to Willie-Russell (she doesn’t
speak, testifying to years of abuse at her father’s hands). The scenario of the
inveterate drunk indulged by a fearful family may be a familiar one (“It ain’t his fault”, Gary’s mother pleads
defensively), and Joe’s weary response to the abuse testifies to this, but the
cadaverous, soulless, eaten-away malevolence of Wade is something else entirely.
Gary is able to give Willie-Russell a beating, but he’s unable to challenge the
man who failed to raise him.
The inevitable
showdown, where Joe unleashes fury, follows the now classical path of the
doomed anti-hero. Joe isn’t going to make it out alive, but he has saved the boy who might have been
destroyed. And Gary appears to take a path of moderation where Joe could not;
he inherits the car and dog, and works on growing trees where before they were
killed. It’s a vaguely hopeful ending, but the picture is too sombre and
brooding to fall for seizing it. Indeed, the picture is seeped in brewing
danger; a fine score from Jeff McIlwain and David Wingo summons the spectre of ambient
nightmares, as if Michael Mann was dragged backwards through a David Lynch
film. Tim Orr, David Gordon Green’s regular cinematographer lends a
naturalistic mise-en-scène, although visually the darkness is at times very inky
indeed.
Gary Hawkins has adapted Larry Brown’s 1991 novel, and the
world depicted, one of working class poor, is a male-dominated one. If there’s a criticism, it’s a function of
the picture’s focus; all the women are victims and whores, although it must be
said no one we encounter is in exactly great shape (Earl perhaps aside).
I haven’t paid much attention to David Gordon Green’s output
of late, mainly because of his detour into the sub-Apatow oafish comedy milieu of
Seth Rogen et al. Perhaps the twin failures of Your Highness and The Sitter
caused him to reconsider and retrench in his formative indie oeuvre. Certainly,
his talents would be far better served there than wasting his time on lame
stoner comedies with his buds.
As for Cage, well he’s terrifically broken. I’m doubtful
that he will persuade his naysayers with this performance; it’s too late for
that, and too much damage has been done. Amidst the gloom and strife, there’s
even the odd moment of classic Cage humour; his delivery of “That dog is a asshole”. While
Joe’s fate has an air of inevitability for a certain type of unreconstituted
hero, it’s not without curious accompanying plot beats. Joe initially shows all-important
restraint, until the third man (whom he does not know) he releases shoots him. Then
his failure to kill Wade leads to unforeseen suicide of the latter. What
impelled Wade to do so? I half wondered if it was the look Joe gave him; I’m
not wholly convinced that the realisation of what he had done to his daughter
suddenly possessed him (but why was he standing there on the bridge waiting
anyway?) Perhaps Wade just recognised this was the end of the line and took the
path of least resistance.
Joe has drawn
inevitable comparisons with another three-letter southern tale of a rebel’s
friendship with a teenage boy. That’s a bit of a false call, since tonally the
two couldn’t be more different. Mud
makes a point of adopting the lyrical, poetic approach. It’s one imbued with
hopefulness, which infects its unlikely upbeat denouement. Joe’s a very different affair, where stark realities allow no
escape from the here and now. And so its ending is a reprieve, but a
melancholic one at best.
