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Courtesy photo |
| Fairuza
Balk and Gabriel Mann in "Don't Come Knocking." |
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Another
lost son road trip movie comes knocking
by
David Germain - Associate Press
If "Paris, Texas" had a sense of humor and a roguish
heart, it might have turned out something like "Don't
Come Knocking."
Two decades after director Wim Wenders and writer Sam Shepard
spun their moody, meandering road trip of family reclamation
with "Paris, Texas," they're at it again in a lighter
vein. "Don't Come Knocking" is another meandering
road trip, with a heart often as big as the vast empty West
in which it's set but a story loaded down by circumstances,
encounters and exchanges entirely too convenient to feel credible.
The inelegant patchwork of its plotting may have resulted
from the long, circuitous manner in which Wenders and Shepard
developed the tale. They started with the characters and let
the story grow bit by bit from them, Shepard writing a scene,
kicking it over for Wenders to read, then moving on to the
next segment after they had consulted. |
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The
story, or what there is of it, grew in fits and starts, and while
the plot line must have seemed an organically evolved tale to Wenders
and Shepard, what's on screen plays out in a muddled manner that
can be puzzling and perturbing.
It's a testament to the raw energy of Shepard's dialogue, the homey
warmth of Wenders' direction and the earthy power of most of the
performances that "Don't Come Knocking" still resonates
so strongly and ends on such a satisfying note.
Shepard, who resisted Wenders' urgings to play the starring role
Harry Dean Stanton eventually took in "Paris, Texas,"
this time does take the lead, playing Howard Spence, a fading movie
star who once was the modern king of the Western.
As the film opens, Howard runs out on his latest production, leaving
the movie crew in the lurch and setting an insurance bondsman (Tim
Roth) on his trail to bring him back and finish the shoot.
Howard's led a life of prima donna debauchery, but why he's grown
so fed up at this particular point that he has to decamp is one
of the many little mysteries Wenders and Shepard decide to leave
hanging.
If Howard's abrupt road trip seems an artificial way to launch into
a story, so too are the pit stops he makes. Out of the blue, he
decides to visit his mother (Eva Marie Saint, in a sprightly turn)
who greets him with bizarrely matter of fact composure even though
they've been out of touch for 30 years.
From mom, Howard learns he may have a son he never knew. Doesn't
it seem as though there's a lot of that going around, after "Broken
Flowers" and "Transamerica?"
So Howard's off to Butte, Mont., where he reunites with an old love
(Jessica Lange, Shepard's real life romantic partner) and tries
to connect with his boy, Earl (Gabriel Mann), a surly musician who
wants nothing to do with him.
Also crossing paths with Howard is Sky (Sarah Polley), a young woman
bearing the ashes of her recently deceased mother. Sky, who bears
her own mysterious connection to Howard, wanders about with almost
catatonic equanimity, and the fact that she has come to town at
the precise moment Howard turns up is another instance where Wenders
and Shepard seem to force the story.
Yet Polley's mix of wisdom and fragility make Sky the soul of the
film, her sweetly wistful optimism forging the beginnings of kinship
among strangers who never knew they wanted or needed family.
Unfortunately, Earl is too much the raving whiner for most of the
film. Mann's portrayal goes over the top from the start and doesn't
settle down until it's too late to care much about his character.
Likewise, Fairuza Balk as Earl's girlfriend is a screechy, griping
presence early on, too caricatured to evoke empathy.
Even keeled through most of the film, Lange has one magnificently
performed exchange with Shepard, the actress raging, pining, reproaching
and wilting in the space of a single scene.
Roth does a fine job wringing sly moments of humor from his role
as the stoic pursuer, the modern equivalent of the always in control
lawman chasing the unruly outlaw. And Shepard brings a rascally
cheeriness to Howard, making this pampered hedonist we have no cause
to like strangely likable.
Cinematographer Franz Lustig captures a sense of the West's lonely
grandeur that again makes "Don't Come Knocking" a real
bookend to "Paris, Texas."
Wenders, whose ear for music is as keen as his eye for images, makes
another inspired choice here, with T Bone Burnett crafting a spare
rootsy score that proves a worthy companion to the "Paris,
Texas" arrangements created by Ry Cooder.
"Don't Come Knocking," a Sony Pictures Classics release,
is rated R for language and brief nudity. Running time: 122 minutes.
Two and a half stars out of four.
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