Stillwater
Directed by Tom McCarthy
Matt Damon’s latest screen role makes him the beating heart of “a strangely affecting turducken of a movie,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire .com. Damon plays Bill Baker, a middle-aged Oklahoma oil worker who travels to Marseille to try to clear his daughter of the murder conviction that has put her in a French prison. At first, Bill is pure caricature: “We’re talking camo hats, prayers over a Sonic burger, bicep tattoos of an eagle holding a skull.” Yet there’s “a quiet softness” to him too, and for a while that leads Stillwater in an unexpected direction, as Bill finds an ally in a local actress, played by Camille Cottin, and bonds with her 9-year-old daughter. The third act spoils everything, said Barry Hertz in the Toronto Globe and Mail. “I can’t recall the last time I was so engrossed
in what was unfolding on the big screen in front of me, then, in an instant, repelled.” After persuading us to settle in with Bill for a compelling character portrait, Spotlight director Tom McCarthy steers this drama down “an absurdly dark path.” In truth, “I have never wanted a film to end so quickly, and so differently.” But Stillwater “eventually binds its disparate threads and tones into something surprisingly resonant,” said Richard Lawson in VanityFair .com. Bill, after all, isn’t just a concerned father but also an avatar for all the trouble Americans can cause overseas while believing in their own good intentions. “It’s rather remarkable that a big Hollywood studio is releasing this difficult, curious film. I hope people give its heady mix of melodrama and political allusion a chance.” (In theaters only)