Gerry December 8, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 2000s , trackback
Is it possible to spoil a movie where almost nothing happens? What about when there’s no emotional attachment to the characters and their actions are rarely interesting and never explained? In Gerry
Here’s what we do see in Gerry: the two men, who call each other Gerry at different points in the movie as well as using the word as both a verb and noun, drive up to a hiking area; they lose their way and split up wherein Affleck “maroons” himself on a rock thirty feet or so above ground, leading to Damon building a “dirt mattress” for him to jump into; night falls and they bicker about how to get back to civilization; they begin seeing mirages as Affleck appears to descend into mental instability; Damon turns on his friend, choking Affleck to death before realizing he’s near the highway where he hitchhikes to safety. In between, we’re treated to very long shots of the desert, of the sky, and of the actors both close up and far away. It’s an empty story and Gerry is an empty film.
For me, the problem with the film lies in the total lack of interest in anything being shown. The two characters appear to the audience as essentially nameless beings placed in the desert without any backstory and with little reason to care about their fate. We know nothing about these men or their lives aside from their apparent friendship, one’s interest in a computer game about prairie life on the frontier, and that the other found humor in the idiocy of Wheel of Fortune contestants. Their actions are just as unhelpful since most of the movie shows them walking or standing silently. I suppose their silence could be seen as stoicism and thus opening up discussion as to some type of exploration into male behavior, but that seems to be grasping at straws with which we’re barely even tempted.
With hollow shells for characters, maybe Van Sant wants his audience to look elsewhere for their enlightment here. If so, he should have provided more than a maddening exercise in testing his viewers’ patience. The open-endedness allows for much interpretation, such as whether the name “Gerry” signals that we’re looking at two halves of the same coin, but there’s just not enough to go on to even make these types of absurd inquiries worthwhile. Any similar theories would certainly be stretching what we see on screen beyond logical inferences and into futile personal opinion.
If you favor sobriety when you watch your movies, I can’t see too much to recommend in Gerry. The two scenes that I found most striking were when Affleck was on the rock and the mirage part where we see Affleck talking to Damon just before Damon walks up and we realize Affleck was really talking to a hallucination. Both of these scenes were interesting, but would have been more effective in a better movie. Even the climactic choking scene is uninspiringly dull, without any real motivation. Did Damon teeter into madness or was he just sick of dealing with his friend? I don’t think there’s any way to know and, by the time we leave the characters, they’ve left minimal impression anyway.
Of course, it’s possible I’m missing something important that’s gone over my head about the film. Gus Van Sant is certainly a talented filmmaker, even if he seems prone to sometimes choosing projects better left unmade. Overall, though, Gerry just seems like it’s lacking in most everything we expect from movies. Regardless of personal taste, there must be something present to provide more interest than, say, looking out the window. Somewhere, with some additional information for the audience or more activity amongst the characters, this could be an interesting and thought-provoking movie. Unfortunately, Van Sant didn’t make that film and instead opted for a filmed coffee table book moonlighting as an existential struggle of two men stranded in the desert.
Comments»
interesting review, although it provides quite the contrary opinion of what i felt. here’s my review in case you’re in for a different take on the movie
http://heartbreakmotel.net/room102/cinema/gerry-by-gus-van-sant-2002/
anyway good film journal, i enjoyed going through some of your reviews