‘Joe’

Based on a 1991 novel by Larry Brown, “Joe” is a simple story that is told poetically with astonishing depth and almost frightening sincerity. Nicolas Cage, returning to top form after a recent sea of garbage, delivers another great performance as the eponymous anti-hero, Joe, an ex-con haunted by a violent past and an uncertain future.

When Joe crosses paths with a homeless teenager named Gary (Tye Sheridan) and his abusive, alcoholic father, Wade (Gary Poulter), their lives become irrevocably entwined in a web of violence, betrayal, retribution and redemption. Joe hires Gary temporarily to help his crew of forest workers (played by real-life laborers) who poison sick trees so they may later be replaced with healthy ones.

Their relationship starts off strong — they seem to share an almost psychic emotional connection, feeling each other’s loneliness and dreaming each other’s day dreams — but is complicated with Gary asks Joe to let his father come work for him too. Gary is a hardworking kid, principled and steadfast. His father is the opposite, an old drunk whose decayed morals and disparately vicious behavior lead him into trouble with violent people as he and his family, also including a wife and daughter, wander from town to town.

This is the kind of powerful character study we’ve seen before from Cage in films like “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” and director David Gordon Green, also in top form again after slumming it with unfortunate flops like “The Sitter” and “Your Highness,” generates an atmosphere thick with tension. This is a visual experience as well as a compelling story, and with “Joe,” Green is working in the mode of his early independent films, particularly his stunning first two features, “George Washington” and “All the Real Girls.”

His style is deeply reminiscent of that of filmmaker Terrence Malick (“Days of Heaven,” “The Tree of Life”) — I actually find Green’s films more compelling and focused than Malick’s — and maintains a dreamlike rhythm that is punctuated by sequences of startling realism. Working with his longtime cinematographer Tim Orr, Green hypnotically captures the essence of the rural south, and the murky back woods setting these characters inhabit, in every frame.

The way Green works with actors (and non-actors) is just as riveting and, in this case, brutally so. Sheridan and Cage are so natural and subtle in this film. It’s fascinating to see these two generations of actors working together with results that spark and sizzle with energy.  Poulter, an actual homeless man at the time the film was made, is transcendent in this role, reaching notes most trained actors dare not approach.

Sadly, Poulter was found dead in a creek prior to the film’s release, leaving this as a deeply personal, painful and moving one-off performance. It’s truly unforgettable.

You can’t shake this film. Its humanity warms you and its realism causes you to shudder. It will undoubtedly be one of the year’s best films, and indicates the beginning of another golden period of filmmaking for Green.

★★★★ (out of four)

‘Only Lovers Left Alive’

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is the eleventh film from Jim Jarmusch (“Broken Flowers,” “Coffee and Cigarettes”), and this time he takes on the vampire genre, blending it with his own strange, idiosyncratic, minimalistic style, and delivering a stylish and poetic interpretation of the vampire myth. The elements are familiar, but what he does with them is unlike anything we may have seen before on screen.

To start, these vampires are not snarling creatures of the night, nor are they sparkling boy-toys with perfectly coiffed hair and painfully tepid, soap opera dialogue (*cough*”Twilight”*cough*). Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) have lived and loved each other for centuries. When the film opens, they are living an ocean apart. Eve lives in Morocco and spends her time reading, dancing to music in her apartment and hanging out with her blood supplier, another vampire named Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt).

Marlowe was a late-16th century playwright and poet who greatly influenced “that illiterate zombie philistine” Shakespeare — Marlowe’s words in the film, not mine.

Adam lives in a rundown house in Detroit where he spends his time recording music on antique music equipment, which he purchases from fellow music-head Ian (Anton Yelchin), and mourning humanity, which he considers to be doomed. He refers to humans as “zombies,” has a wall of literary and musical heroes, and gets his blood from a blood bank contact codenamed Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright).

As with previous Jarmusch films, “Only Lovers Left Alive” is less narrative driven than it is character driven. It’s more mood than plot. Adam and Even decide early on to reunite for a spell, and a few story threads are woven from their reunion, including an unwelcome visit from immature, fanged moocher Ava (Mia Wasikowska), that leads the lovers into a long, troubled night of nightclubbing and body disposal.

But for the most part, the film is a relaxed, intimate meditation on the probable boredom and exhaustion of (nearly) eternal life. It’s a slice of life portrait that captures a few days in the life of the undying, as they comfort each other, argue about the downfall of civilization, discuss art and music, and experience the highs of blood drinking and the lows of withdrawal once their plasma sources start to run dry.

Pitch perfect performances all around, sharp writing and direction from Jarmusch, brilliant cinematography by Yorick Le Saux (“Julia,” “I Am Love”) and stunning psychedelic music by SQÜRL allow the film to feel whole, like a complete experience.

Something that all of the best “vampire movies” have in common is this: Even if you take away the supernatural element, they still manage to communicate to us an involving, identifiable story. Jarmusch essentially uses it as a device to explore how people deal with fairly universal problems, internal and external concerns with which most of us can identify.  “Only Lovers Left Alive,” like Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” and Kathryn Bigelow’s  “Near Dark,” works on that level exactly. Jarmusch has crafted a clever, introspective new entry to a genre that has, in recent years, taken on far too much dead weight (*cough*”Twilight”*cough*).

★★★1/2 (out of four)