It’s Montana in 1960 and all is not going well with Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan’s marriage. They are Jerry and Jeanette and they have a teenage son Joe. Clearly the writer got stuck on the ’J’s page in his ’name your character’ book.
Wild forest fires are burning across the state meaning the air quality is poor and the kids are receiving fire training. Jerry works at a golf course but is quickly dismissed, with Joe present, for gambling with the guests. We learn he has trouble keeping jobs, meaning that the family is always on the move.
We see him with a couple of beers, so it’s clear he’s immediately become an inveterate drunk. He refuses menial jobs, meaning that Jeanette has to get a job teaching swimming and Joe one after school at a photography studio. He’s happy to do this as it means he doesn’t have to play football which he dislikes but his father expects.
Jerry has a few breakdowns and speeches Willy Loman style, and rashly accepts a dangerous, low paid, job putting out the fires. Jeanette is aghast at first but soon starts to act up and walking out with an older, wealthier man whom she met when she taught him to swim. She takes Joe to meet him and the boy sees him giving Mom a special goodnight kiss. He also sees his ass when he stops over one night.
Joe develops a friendship with a girl classmate, but when Jerry returns and Jeanette announces she’s leaving, he has to witness the final throes of their marriage. What can be salvaged from the wreckage? And will Joe be scarred by the messy break-up of his parents?
This film started out well and for the first half hour I was quite engaged. Gyllenhaal is always watchable and the film suffers when he exits stage left for the middle third. His struggles with authority and keeping a job were interesting and it’s a shame his character wasn’t developed more. Instead the main focus was on their son Joe who, although well played by Ed Oxenbould (see The Visit), he was a bit dull. Part of his character was that he was a late developer, but he spent a lot of the film staring with a quivering bottom lip.
I think the idea was that he was powerless to intervene as his parents' marriage and, by proxy, his life disintegrated. The raging fires were a strong metaphor and it was no surprise when erstwhile fire-fighter Jerry became a crazy fire starter when trying to sort out his problems.
I didn’t buy into Jeanette’s character arc, who went from doting Mom to drunk floozy almost overnight. Of course she was responding to Jerry’s recklessness in taking the fire fighting job but it didn’t ring true that she’s have the ancient Warren in her bed, with her son in the house, mere days after Jerry left the scene. Mulligan was decent as Jeanette and carried the 60’s fashions well but she was poorly served by lazy writing and unbelievable character developments.
The film has a kind of coda at the end where Mom comes back for a visit and the family is briefly reunited. This didn’t really resolve any issues but at least they got the photo for the poster.
Overall this was a decent period examination of a failed marriage but it was ultimately unsatisfying and more than a little dull.
Best Bit : Dinner at Warren’s ‘W’ Rating 12/23
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