Desert storm
MOJAVE | Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac get sand in their shoes…
I love the desert,” says William Monahan, whose new film Mojave takes us slapbang into one of America’s most famous arid terrains.
In reality, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Departed and Kingdom Of Heaven hails from the slightly more leafy New England. “There is something about the desert that attracts a young man from this culture far more than it attracts the young men boiling out [ in] various deserts now.”
After directing 2010’s reclusive actress tale London Boulevard, Monahan’s sophomore behind-camera effort is a pared-back indie, made with “a lot less cooks in the kitchen”, as his star Garrett Hedlund puts it. The story sees Hedlund’s artist/actor Tom encounter Oscar Issac’s psychotic Jack in the aforementioned desert, as a cozy campfire chat escalates into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
Going low-budget, Monahan called in favours – not least an appearance by Mark Wahlberg, who’d featured in The Departed and last year’s Monahan-scripted The Gambler. Alongside The Hateful Eight’s Walton Goggins, who plays Tom’s agent, Wahlberg is an equally odious Hollywood player rarely seen without two bimbos by his side.
So is this based on Monahan’s experience of Tinseltown folk? “Absolutely not. I’m pretty well known for not being that kind of writer. I don’t import civilians. I write my own people,” he says. “If Mark Wahlberg is screaming off a balcony that he doesn’t need Hollywood bullshit because he owns half a clamshack in Harwichport, Massachusetts, you can be sure I didn’t find him on the street. He came from my brain!”
Right now, Monahan is not sure whether he’ll return to direct, feeling constrained by the compromises often forced upon directors. “Frankly I never expected to be living in a universe of mixed reviews for decisions I did not make. That’s no way to work and live… In films, there is an actual paper you sign, where you become something other than the author. I don’t think I’ll be signing that paper anymore.” JM
ETA | 25 March Mojave opens later this month.