This movie was pretty good! Rooney Mara steals every scene she is in with muted perfection. She has shown in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo that she can hold her own - but in this film she can showcase. Casey Affleck is great but doesn't shine as brightly. There are some strong themes at play here. The biggest is the concept if Family. It consumes Affleck's Muldoon pushing him to escape prison and ultimately kill. He has redemption at the end of the film with Mara's Guthrie. Ben Foster shows great depth in as much a muted role as Mara's. Strong performances and definitely worth seeing in the theater to appreciate the cinematography.
I give this movie 3 thumbs up out of four.
Official synopsis:
2012, 90 minutes, color, U.S.A.
Bob Muldoon and Ruth Guthrie, an impassioned young outlaw couple on an extended crime spree, are finally apprehended by lawmen after a shootout in the Texas hills. Although Ruth wounds a local officer, Bob takes the blame. But four years later, Bob escapes from prison and sets out to find Ruth and their daughter, born during his incarceration.
The barren landscapes of David Lowery’s poetic feature evoke the mythology of westerns and saturate the dramatic space with fatalism and an aching sense of loss. Aided by powerfully restrained performances by Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, and Ben Foster, Lowery incorporates an unnerving tension into the film, teetering it at the edge of violence.
The beautiful, irreconcilable dilemma of the story is that Ruth—compelled by the responsibilities of motherhood and her evolving relationship with the deputy she shot—remains haunted by her intense feelings for Bob. Each of them longs for some form of peace. Ironically, it’s Bob, the unrepentant criminal trapped in the romantic image of a bygone past, who is driven by an almost righteous sense of clarity. Following in the footsteps of Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde, Lowery’s humanism transcends the genre.
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