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Frailty
****
Cinema Releases - September 6, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
99 minutes. Directed by Bill Paxton. Written by Brent Hanley. Starring Bill
Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matthew O'Leary, Jeremy Sumpter,
Luke Askew, Levi Kreis, Derk Cheetwood.
The father is a mechanic in small-town Texas,
as down to earth and well balanced as any man you could hope to meet. He's
a widower raising two boys, who has moulded a perfect family unit: the brothers
hardly fight, the older one makes dinner just in time for when dad gets home,
conversation at the table is just fine and at bedtime you can feel the love
in the room.
There is nothing creepy about the family. Yes,
the father actually uses nouns like "son" and "sport" at the end of his
sentences, but he's not one of those overly chirpy guys who make you think
there's something amiss. He is kind, gentle, warm. Intelligent, too, although
he chuckles that, just like his boys, he was never all that crazy about math
back in school.
When dad wakes the kids up one night and tells
them he has had a revelation from God, he looks like he's justified the
authenticity of the vision with sobriety and reason. He declares with the
tenderness of a good parent that he and his children have been selected to
destroy demons disguised as humans. He prays that the kids not be scared
or think he has gone crazy. He reminds them that they must never kill real
people. And he looks like he's doing what he thinks is right.
"Frailty", a great new film that
uses the grammar of mainstream cinema but in many ways defies description,
tells the story of the Meeks family's journey into killing with sad, lonely
drifts between flashback and the present day. Matthew McConaughey plays one
of the grown-up sons, telling an FBI agent about how in the summer of 1978,
his old man became convinced that he was one of God's violent servants and
insisted on doing holy duty on many a grisly night.
Bill Paxton has done a masterful job in his
directorial debut, and gives a heartbreaking performance as Mr. Meeks, who
doesn't want to become a destructor or subject his sons to the sight of a
drop of blood, but feels that he has no choice. The pre-teen children are
divided: Fenton (Matthew O'Leary), the older boy, is defiant in his earthly
conviction that his dad is on the wrong track and doing unspeakable things.
Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) is fiercely loyal and faithful, insisting that he can
feel the power that has commanded his household and see the demons of which
his father speaks.
The film is disturbingly convincing in terms of
its drama, creating relationships of clarity between the characters and showing
their odd journey in frank, straightforward shots. At the same time, the
darkness of the settings, and the challenging enormity of the onscreen
declarations and actions, creates a looming otherworldliness. When we are
not wincing we feel like we're watching a well-told horror or ghost story.
Throughout the strange, painful flashbacks of "Frailty", we cannot help but
contemplate the psychology driving the characters, and each of their situations
is so extreme that our pondering has a disturbed, fearful unreality to
it.
"Frailty" does such a good job of painting situations,
and contains so many different kinds of surprises, that I am forced to be
vague to avoid spoiling the experience. A few careful words must be written
about the ending, although if you would prefer to know absolutely nothing
before seeing the film, you should perhaps stop reading. All I will say is
that the conclusion must not be mistaken as a radical justification for certain
behaviour; rather, it's what signals the film as a piece of fantasy that
has spooked us out in many ways and then in one grand, brilliant way. This
film is a thinking outside of the box, an answer to viewers who think we
can convince ourselves of what not to expect.
Paxton here announces himself not only as one
of the best new directors, but also one of the bravest. Brent Hanley's screenplay
is such a chancy piece of storytelling, dealing with such extreme passions
and specific forms of behaviour (in both domestic and surreally violent moments),
that it could have turned out laughable. Paxton brings it to the screen with
an astonishing balance of gall, command and restraint. It's hard to make
a creepy movie that also serves as moving drama, harder to get performances
from child actors in the midst of the profoundly grisly, harder still to
toy with redefining the nature of God. It's near impossible to pull it all
off in your first feature film, and it is crazy to even make the attempt
when you're already a celebrity, with everything to lose. "Frailty" is some
piece of work.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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