Making liberal hearts bleed in anytown, U.S.A.
Why does Hollywood keep churning out didactic movies like "Promised Land"?
Topics: The American Prospect, Promised Land, matt damon, Gus Van Sant, Hollywood
Political issues come and go, but message movies never change. Thanks partly to a relatively novel subject—fracking—and partly to an elliptical set-up, Gus van Sant’s Promised Land, written from a story by Dave Eggers by its stars, Matt Damon and The Office’s John Krasinski, varies from the norm only in fooling you for almost half an hour into thinking it actually might be up to something interesting. Too bad the movie turns into the same Ibsen for Idiots combo of a burning deck and a stacked one that was creaky when Jane Fonda was just another lonesome gal with a few New York modeling gigs to her credit.
His brow as furrowed as if he’s just woken up in a voting booth with no pants on, Damon plays Steve Butler—as in “loyal servant,” no doubt—who’s snapping up mineral-rights leases on behalf of a corporation unsubtly named Global somewhere in generic, Great Recession-ravaged Heartland, U.S.A. The setting’s lack of specificity is your first hint that flyover country will go on looking like flyover country to well-meaning Hollywoodites even from a minivan. When you’re telling a story about the potential destruction of a community, providing some sense of said community’s distinctive crotchets and idiosyncrasies might be nice, but Promised Land‘s sense of place is mired at sitcom level. Figuring out that a town like this probably has a high-school basketball team of some sort is about as sharp as the movie’s observational gifts get.
Still, the early sequences as Butler learns his way around Anyville —insinuating himself into the locals’ good graces by participating in a drinking game at what appears to be the only bar in town, vaguely taking up with Rosemary De Witt as Alice, an implausibly chic schoolteacher—do have some vitality. Van Sant is often happiest when he’s in no hurry to get to the point, and Frances McDormand brings some genuine flavor and individuality to her talking-point part as Butler’s frankly mercenary (“It’s just a job”) sidekick. I’m not sure there’s another actress around with comparable expertise at adding a compassionate pound of flesh to stick figures.



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