‘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)

In Memoriam: Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

Cartoon by Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune.

I’ve been a devoted moviegoer for as long as I can remember but I feel I never truly experienced movies as deeply as I could have until I discovered your work.

As one of the most sincere, funny, pithy but penetrating film critics, philosophers and writers of our time, you carried across decades your universal knowledge and appreciation of cinema.

You began writing film reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. I began reading your reviews in 2004 when I was in eighth grade and the second half of a dreadful, better-off-forgotten two year stint at Ormond Stone Middle School. I had social anxiety problems and when I felt lost or overwhelmed, I turned to music and movies, i.e., The Beatles and Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Tim Burton, Christopher Guest and Alexander Payne, to name a few filmmakers who I became enamored with at that time.

Then came my discovery of your website, rogerebert.com, which, since your death on April 4^th, one week ago today, has been re-launched with a stellar new design and a new-and-improved, well-oiled search engine so we can comb through seemingly endless archives of your writing.

With the update and restoration of your site comes a bittersweet twinge of blended peace and sadness. From my first readings of your work (4-star reviews of “Kill Bill” and “The Aviator,” and 1-star reviews of “Team America” and “Catwoman”) to your final filed review of Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder,” my respect and appreciation of you has grown exponentially. You have guided me through my many trips to the movies and inspired me to write, write, write.

Early on in my writing career, you even took the time to personally respond to my comment on your blog entry, selfishly asking you for your expert opinion of my glowing review of Judd Apatow’s “Funny People.”

You wrote back the following:

“Apatow may be a tad short of genius, but you have a nice conversational writing style and allow the reader to feel you are confiding.”

However brief and long ago, you’ll never know how much that meant to me, Mr. Ebert.

I began writing my own film reviews during my first year in college. Between the staggering genius of writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” and your typically insightful 4-star review, I felt compelled at last to copy down the intense flood of ideas and emotions that followed my first viewing of it. Looking back on that first review, I can see my language, grammar and communication skills have all improved since then. I attribute a lot of the credit to you, whose work I kept up with each week until the very end, when your posts began to slow down and I began to suspect something was up.

When you announced on your blog that your cancer had returned and you would be taking a “leave of presence,” reviewing the movies that you want to see and cutting down from your usual 200 (!) reviews a year, I had to take a deep breath and accept the inevitable, that my hero’s health could be declining once again, and maybe for the last time. You made that announcement on April 3, forty-six years to the day when you became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The next day, your death was announced and I cried for my loss, for your wonderful wife Chaz’s loss and for the world’s loss.

You have left behind an important, masterful archive of work to be read and studied for as long as humans continue to roam the Earth. Even in death, you will continue to inspire and influence people like me. You courageously battled cancer and other health problems to the very end and for that and everything else, you are a hero and an inspiration to us all.

Thank you Mr. Ebert.

Be at peace and, as always, see you at the movies.