Ethan Hawke long ago graduated from his precocious-slacker image into more adult roles.
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Hawke → graduate → roles
If anything, he’s actually a bit old to be playing the father of a girl around the age of five or six, especially considering that The Weight is set in Depression-era 1933, when Hawke’s real-life age of 55 would place him somewhere beyond the average life expectancy of someone born around the turn of the century, as his character here must have been.
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character → ’ → century
Hawke doesn’t exactly look 55 in The Weight.
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Hawke → look → Weight
As a prisoner thrown in work camp over a bogus assault charge stemming from his original sin of knocking on the side door of a building advertising an apartment for rent, he’s gaunt of face and seemingly taut of muscle, at least enough to survive some months of heavy labor.
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he → throw → labor
But boy, do his eyes bear plenty of, well… see the title.
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eyes → bear → title
His widower Samuel Murphy is desperate to shave as much time off his time as possible with good behavior, so that he might rescue his daughter Penny (Avy Berry) from impending foster placement, which she’s been placed on track to receive following his arrest and offscreen conviction.
uncertain
she → shave → arrest
So when the not quite sadistic, but far from kind, warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) comes to Murphy with a shady proposition that could insta-commute his sentence, he’s in no position to turn it down.
uncertain
he → come → it
His mission provides both the harrowing drama and the crackerjack entertainment value in The Weight, a Sundance movie receiving a wide yet quiet release this weekend.
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mission → provide → release
It’s exactly the type of well-crafted, adult-targeted thriller that audiences will discover on streaming in six or twelve or eighteen months, likely drawn in by the presence of Hawke or especially Crowe, and wonder why they hadn’t heard of it before.
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they → ’ → it
Here’s a chance to hear of it now, and maybe go see it.
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chance → ’ → it
It’s one of the best movies of the year so far.
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It → ’ → year
The story comes together like something Clint Eastwood might have made in the mid-to-late-1970s, somewhere between Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and Escape from Alcatraz.
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Eastwood → come → Alcatraz
Clancy asks Murphy to select a group of trustworthy men — Rankin (Austin Amelio), Singh (Avi Nash), and Olson (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen) appear to be his only realistic options — to smuggle a bunch of gold bricks through the wilderness, so that Clancy’s partners can avoid a coming mining seizure from President Roosevelt.
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partners → ask → Roosevelt
They’ll be accompanied by two additional goons; they also take on Anna (Julia Jones), an Indigenous woman who spots their traveling party early on and proves useful in shoring up their defenses.
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who → accompany → defenses
There’s a touch of The Treasure of Sierra Madre and a bit of Sorcerer here (yes, a rickety must be traversed), as well as a neo-Western sensibility (think about it: gold, outlaws, an Indigenous woman) transposed into greener, less wide-open territory.
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rickety → ’ → territory
Director Padraic McKinley explores that territory through his group compositions, arranging the men together in the frame and planting the camera at the right vantage to capture all of them at once.
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McKinley → explore → them
In these moments, the movie expands, ever so stealthily, beyond its meat-and-potatoes set-up, blending into the natural poetry of its forested setting.
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movie → expand → setting
The setting doesn’t need to look exotic (though it was shot in Germany, subbing for Oregon) to take advantage of on-location cinematography; Italian DP Matteo Cocco gets dirt under the movie’s fingernails.
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Cocco → need → fingernails
But it’s the presence of fellow bird-names Hawke and Crowe who will draw people in.
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who → ’ → people
Hawke has chiseled his middle-aged presence into something surprisingly flinty for a guy who rose to fame being the handsome face of insufferability in Reality Bites.
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who → chisel → Bites
A lot of actors would overplay the I-want-my-kid-back desperation in a part like this.
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I → overplay → this
Hawke only needs a few scenes opposite his on-screen daughter to convey his love and fear; the latter lingers somewhere in his eyes for the rest of the movie.
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latter → need → movie
I can’t emphasize enough how bizarre and cool it is that this guy is playing parts that Eastwood might have done at the same age, only with a grounded sensitivity that Clint would intentionally keep at bay.
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Clint → emphasize → bay
Crowe is in far less of the movie; the whole deal is that he’s outsourcing the hard work to his prisoners.
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he → outsource → prisoners
But this is one of those character parts that he slips into with a perfect understanding of how to make a bad (or at least not-that-good) guy compelling, but not hammy; charismatic, but not overtly oily.
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guy → slip → understanding
The two stars’ handful of scenes together are perfectly played.
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handful → play → scenes
It would be easily enough to overhype The Weight, which is ultimately spinning good yarn rather than profundity about Depression-era America or the dedication of fatherhood or the corruption of the prison system.
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which → overhype → system
But it’s even easier to ignore this kind of well-crafted gem.
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it → ’ → gem
If Resident Evil isn’t your style, or maybe even if it is and you want to extend your moviegoing high, seek out The Weight while it’s still possible to see it big.
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it → want → Weight
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn.
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Hassenger → live → Brooklyn
He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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He → ’ → others
The Aporia
