‘Entertainment’ (2015)

Rick Alverson’s “Entertainment” is a film that subverts all connotations surrounding its title, and rather than directly entertaining us, actually challenges us by inspiring these questions: “What is ‘entertainment,’ why do those who seek to entertain do so, and what do we, the ‘entertained,’ expect from our entertainers?”

“Entertainment” follows an aging comedian (Gregg Turkington) as he travels across the California desert, performing at seedy clubs and prisons, all the while making his way toward some big Hollywood gig, and perhaps an estranged daughter.

As the film progresses, the comedian struggles to communicate with others, both through his belligerent stage character (based on “Neil Hamburger,” a character that Turkington performs as in real life),  whose act is made up of subversive, carefully constructed hacky jokes of misogyny, homophobia and overall distaste, and in his life off-stage. That inability to communicate builds, driving the always restrained and subtly affecting story into increasingly surreal territory that paints the American Southwest as somewhat of a wasteland of washed up opportunity and spent talent.

When viewed shallowly, from a distance and with slightly squinted eyes, the very premise of Alverson’s film, which he co-wrote with Turkington and Heidecker, is not an unfamiliar one. The idea here is that Alverson and company are taking something we have seen before in more conventional films about aging entertainers, and deconstructing it in order to get a fuller grasp, not on the story arc itself exactly, but more on what about this kind of story makes sense in a naturalistic sort of way, one that is not blurred or sweetened saccharine by clean resolutions or sentimental revelations.

Consider one scene where, after a typically lousy show, the comedian tries to explain to his cousin, John (John C Reilly), how he doesn’t really have an audience anymore that “gets it.” Meanwhile, John clearly doesn’t get it either, and offers the comedian some advice, that he should just try to be less weird, and maybe more people will get it.

This is a funny scene, but it also plays realistically with these opposite character types while again subverting expectations of some kind of cathartic moment between them. In this scene and many others, we witness the breakdown of direct communication and sense that no one is really on the same level of understanding. The comedian calls his estranged daughter frequently throughout the film, and always ends up having to leave a message — unable to reach her, unable to reach his audience, unable to reach himself. There is a lot of humor, but none of it comes without a little bit of a sting. That’s the kind of film Alverson is interested in making.

“Entertainment” doesn’t contain a single disposable scene, or a scene out of place. It is refreshingly efficient in its storytelling, and proves Alverson to be one of the most focused, confident and uncompromising directors working today. He makes confrontational movies about confrontational people, and there’s something both unsettling and somehow completely brilliant and refreshing about his approach. Alverson previously made “The Comedy,” a staggeringly unflinching foray into an aging yuppie-hipster played by Tim Heidecker, whose boredom and apathetic amusement with playing pranks on strangers in and around Brooklyn leaves him somewhat of a shell of a man. “Entertainment” can be viewed as a companion piece to that.

Turkington as a truly strange and fascinating to watch as he re-interprets his own real-life character for the film, which has been digested and reinterpreted by Heidecker, Alverson and himself, and then switches it off and becomes the hollow shell of a man (à la Heidecker’s character in “The Comedy”). As he journeys forward, the comedian wanders through the desert in search of something intangible, and visits various tourist attractions, including an airplane graveyard full of hollowed out shells of once were magnificent machines, an oil field where the derricks continuously drill and drill without repose, and an old West ghost town, all of which are better at indicating what is going on with the comedian than he himself is able to express to others. It also could be that Alverson is poking fun at metaphors — that also would be the kind of film that he is interested in making.

“Entertainment” is one of the best pictures of the year.

★★★★ (out of 4)

‘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)