Let Him Go: Riveting, but flawed

Let Him Go (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.6.20

Kevin Costner has matured well.

 

He projects an aura of calm self-assurance, leavened with a dry sense of humor, and a gaze that can shift — in a heartbeat — from tenderness to flinty anger. He excels at characters who may have yielded to baser instincts, back in the day, but who subsequently gained insight and patience … while retaining a hard edge.

 

Having traveled far in order to see their grandson again, Margaret (Diane Lane) and
George (Kevin Costner) are delighted when the little boy appears: a mere prelude
to what rapidly becomes an unselling situation.

He’s perfectly cast in the ongoing TV series Yellowstone, and the same is true of the role he plays here, in director/scripter Thomas Bezucha’s adaptation of Larry Watson’s 2013 novel. Let Him Go opens today in operational cinemas.

 

Bezucha’s treatment is long on characterization — particularly the quiet moments that define a relationship — and, regrettably, short on detail; the first act, in particular, omits all manner of necessary back-story, and leaves several key questions unanswered. One gets the impression that several expository scenes were left on the cutting-room floor.

 

Alternatively, this may have been deliberate; Bezucha focuses on his two protagonists, and how they respond first to tragedy, and later to an unexpected — and horrific — challenge. The genre is amorphous: equal parts thriller, mystery, latter-day Western and character drama, leavened with a subtle slice of social commentary.

 

At its core, though, this is a story about mothers and sons.

 

The setting is Montana, in the early 1960s. Retired sheriff George Blackledge (Costner) and his wife Margaret (Diane Lane) share their ranch home with their adult son James (Ryan Bruce), his wife Lorna (Kayli Carter), and the couple’s newborn baby, Jimmy. Margaret and James break horses for a living; the income is modest, but enough to keep them comfortable.

 

We sense that Lorna is an uncertain new mother, easily intimidated by the far more capable and assertive Margaret, who — in turn — isn’t sufficiently attentive to her daughter-in-law’s insecurities. Such subtleties hit the back burner when James suddenly dies of a broken neck, when thrown from his horse.

 

Bezucha abruptly flashes forward three years, to the day Lorna marries Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain). (Where did he come from? How did they meet?) Donnie joins the Blackledge household, but the fit feels wrong; Margaret’s suspicions are confirmed during a visit to town, when — unseen — she witnesses Donnie striking both Lorna and Jimmy (now played, alternately, by twins Bram and Otto Hornung).

 

Some brief period of time passes, at which point George and Margaret waken one morning to discover that Donnie, Lorna and Jimmy are gone, having departed in the middle of the night. (Why then? Given what subsequently transpires, why would Donnie have waited even a day to run off with his new family?)

Private Life: Painfully raw, deeply revealing

Private Life (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong sexual content, nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Obsession takes many forms.

Richard and Rachel Biegler (Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn) want a child. The artsy Manhattan-based couple delayed starting a family because Rachel — an author — always had a fresh publishing deadline. Now, having slid into middle age, the “process” has become more complicated.

Richard (Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn, center), obsessed with their desire to
"become pregnant," are delighted by the distraction offered by their niece, Sadie
(Kayli Carter), when she asks to crash in their apartment for awhile.

Or perhaps things always would have been complicated. Rachel’s eggs apparently aren’t top-quality, and Richard has only one testicle: a detail quickly tossed into any discussion of the topic — even with friends — much to his ongoing embarrassment. (And the first indication of the degree of “sharing” we’re in for.)

“Embarrassment” is plentiful in writer/director Tamara Jenkins’ intimate Private Life, much of it radiating from us viewers, who can’t help feeling like voyeurs. This is one of the most ferociously personal, deeply poignant dramedies I’ve ever seen, and also one of the most painfully, hilariously insightful. We laugh a lot, but often self-defensively: hoping that Jenkins — and her terrific cast — won’t go that one more private step further.

But they always do.

We meet Richard and Rachel well into what already must have been dozens (scores?) of sessions with their specialist, Dr. Dordick (Denis O’Hare, a stitch as the sort of tone-deaf male doctor who tries for humor at all the wrong moments). The film opens as Richard jabs his wife in the buttocks with another hormone shot, the actors bravely bared just as much physically, as emotionally.

We get a sense, as details emerge, that this process is being driven primarily by Rachel, and that Richard is doing everything he can to help and support. Both are weary after months on numerous emotional roller coasters. The hormones make her crazy, alternately bitchy or despondent; he’s exhausted, trying to anticipate and keep up with her moods, without saying or doing something that prompts an unexpected eruption of fury.

Rarely has the phrase “walking on eggshells” been more apt.

Unfortunately — unhappily — it quickly becomes clear that they’ve moved beyond “reasonable” options, and strayed deeply into the realm of fixation. Artificial insemination failed. An attempt to adopt went cruelly awry, as revealed during an absolutely heartbreaking flashback.