The Good Life is an arty indie film about people in small-town Nebraska
who are alienated from
mainstream American life. The words in the ironic title refer to the words
on the "Welcome to Nebraska" signs at the state's borders.
The focal point is a young man named Jason who graduated
from high school in small-town Nebraska and never managed to move away. He
comes from a poor family and his father has recently passed away, so he
can't afford to pay the electricity bills and lives in a freezing house.
He makes the best living he can by working at a gas station. His only real
amusement comes from his nightly visits to the local nostalgia cinema, but
even that pleasure has become more of a responsibility because the owner
of the theater, an old gent who has become his good friend, is gradually
losing his mental functions and needs the younger man to help him keep everything
on schedule.
The bane of Jason's existence is a former high school football player who lost his mind and turned into a vicious bully
who never takes off his old jersey. Jason's redemption comes through an
ethereally beautiful young woman who wandered into the theater one night
and just forced her way into his life. She initiates a sexual
relationship with the young man, and seems totally unconcerned by the
total hair loss that has affected him for years.
Jason is desperate to leave his small-town existence, but cannot. His mother is alone
and jobless, so Jason's meager income is their sole support. His old
friend in the movie theater is falling into senile dementia, so Jason's
care is his only connection to normality.
This film was screened at Sundance in 2007, and if ever there was a
film "made for Sundance," this is it, and not just because of the themes.
There are snippets from old films. There are long, quiet scenes
punctuated by melancholy piano chords. There are rejections of
mainstream American life. There are lingering shots of desolate wintry
streets in once-respectable neighborhoods gone to seed. There are decaying artifacts of obsolete technology like rusted old gas pumps,
manual cash registers, and old-fashioned projectors. There is the run-down
Capitol theater in a neighborhood full of warehouses, boarded-up shops and
razed apartments. Every shot is carefully calculated to present a world
left behind by the glitz and prosperity of modern American life. If you
are as cynical as I, bookmark this review, and if a young filmmaker asks
for your advice on how to get a film screened at Sundance, give him this
paragraph as a checklist.
This film has some flaws, the worst of which is "piling on." It seems
that every major character is theatrically tragic in some way, and most of
them have mental illnesses which would typically require
institutionalization. The beautiful, angelic girlfriend turns out to be
deeply disturbed, and her entire background story turns out not to be her
own, but Judy Garland's. The ex-jock is hurting people physically and
obviously represents a danger to the community, but no policemen
seem to care or notice. The theater owner has lost his grip on reality.
And Jason's recently deceased father turns out to have been the craziest
one of the lot. It may be possible to find so much insanity linked through
one central person in small-town America, but a realistic cast of
characters would also include other people who are completely sane and who
are resigned to or even happy with their lives. There would be waitresses
and police officers and store clerks with upbeat personalities and
cheerful outlooks. There would be loving young mothers who are a bit
bored, but thrilled to be raising their new babies. There would be good
kids having a great time from the final school bell until bedtime. Those
sorts of characters are excluded from this story, which chooses to focus
only on the damaged goods. That sort of exclusion turns what might have
been a poignantly realistic story about America into a archetypal
fairy tale about Neverland, and destroys any credibility or insight it
might have been able to establish as an examination of the American
underbelly. And isn't it enough that the lead character is living in dire
poverty, trapped in a town where he gets beaten up at random times for no
reason? Does he also have to be hairless and surrounded by insanity?
That doesn't mean it is not a good film. The cinematography and score
are consistent and evocative. The performances are delivered by the cream
of the indie scene, like Donal Logue, Mark Webber, Zoe Deschanel and Harry
Dean Stanton. The script is deeply heartfelt and intricate. The main
characters are allowed to develop on screen. The film is a genuine piece
of art. That's not to say it is great art, but it is art nonetheless, not
formulaic commercial filmmaking, and I applaud many things about it,
especially the depth of characterization, the attention to detail, and the
ability of the author to tie so many elements together as artfully as a
composer might wind separate instrumental parts into a symphony. I also
admire the filmmaker's ability to allow us to draw our own conclusions
about some scenes without offering an editorial perspective or an
excessively verbose explanation. I'm also impressed by the fact that he
allows some characters to move toward more hopeful and positive
situations.
This film, while a superb effort from a first-timer, is just
too downbeat and poetic to attract much of an audience, but you should
probably enter filmmaker Steve Berra on your list of people to watch,
because the potential on display here, while totally unrefined and still
searching for a unique voice, is enormous.
