Writer-director attracted to love story at heart of Let Him Go
CALGARY, Alta. — At roughly the midway point of the dramatic thriller “Let Him Go,” there is a quiet scene between Diane Lane and Kevin Costner at a restaurant.
It’s before the characters are put through the ringer and before the Alberta-shot film explodes in an unsettling burst of violence. It’s just a simple exchange between a husband and wife. After nearly four decades, George Blackledge is clearly still in love with his spouse, Margaret. Much of the dialogue is drawn directly from Larry Watson’s 2013 novel of the same name. A retired lawman, the stoic and soft-spoken George talks about how he is still in awe, and still a little mystified, by his wife.
“That’s probably what made me want to do the movie,” says writer-director Thomas Bezucha, in an interview with Postmedia. “I loved what it said about her, what it said about him and what he loved about her. It opened a whole world of their interior lives to me that was inspiring.”
Going strictly by the plot synopsis, it would be understandable if audiences expected “Let Him Go” to be an action-packed thriller. Set in 1963, the film focuses on the Blackledges’ attempts to rescue their young grandson. After George and Margaret lose their adult son to an accident, their former daughterin-law, Lorna (played by Kayli Carter), eventually remarries. Her new husband, Donnie (Will Brittain), takes the Blackledges’ young grandson to North Dakota to live with his dangerous, off-the-grid family. At Margaret’s insistence, the couple set off from their ranch in hopes of convincing Lorna to return to Montana with her son.
This is not to say that there isn’t bloodshed in “Let Him Go,” which hits theatres Nov. 6. But it isn’t a run-of-the-mill action movie. Bezucha, whose past films include the 2005 comedy-drama “The Family Stone” and 2011 rom-com “Monte Carlo,” had long been a fan of Watson’s novels. It was the finely drawn characters more than the rescue angle that appealed to him.
“I loved that it had this thriller engine,” Bezucha says. “But the opportunity to show the life of a long-married couple was really interesting to me and to do a character study of George and Margaret and their relationship. It’s about a couple that is dealing with grief and how they deal with it. They have been married 35 years and are still in love.”
Bezucha bought the rights to the novel a few years back and approached Lane about the role of Margaret while the film was still in early development.
“I had a great lunch with her and she was passionate about the project and had a real fix on how she thought Margaret was and what was driving Margaret and that whole journey,” Bezucha. “I had been a fan of hers forever, so that was an easy partnership. On the strength of that, we approached Kevin. I feel like I hit the jackpot twice.”