Old Joy (2006)

Old Joy: Directed by Kelly Reichardt. With Daniel London, Will Oldham, Tanya Smith, Robin Rosenberg. Two old pals reunite for a camping trip in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.

“In Kelly Reichartu0026#39;s Old Joy, two thirty-something males who live in the Pacific Northwest reunite for a day-and-a-half trip by car and on foot to a hot spring in Oregonu0026#39;s Cascade Mountains and discover some hours of peace and mutual solitude. It seems that the years have separated them. Once great friends, they havenu0026#39;t been in touch for a while. They arenu0026#39;t the same guys they were and perhaps havenu0026#39;t much in common any more. The stocky, balding, bearded, single Kurt (Will Oldham) is a semi-hippie living marginally who smokes a lot of grass. Mark (Daniel London) is thin and married and both he and his pregnant wife work hard at their jobs. But Reichart is too unemphatic, and her understated dialogue is too naturalistic, for this implied discovery of lost friendship to have any drama, or for the differences between the two men to have any clear point. This is good film-making, but it seems almost at cross purposes with itself.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe colors are rich, the camera is precise, the sounds are finely recorded. The trip is meticulously observed. Reichart sees her little piece of ivory through a magnifying glass. The way Mark and Kurt talk seems authentic and true. They donu0026#39;t present back-stories, because it wouldnu0026#39;t be natural for them to do so — though Kurt acknowledges Marku0026#39;s daring in having a child; he says heu0026#39;s never done anything so u0026quot;real.u0026quot; Marku0026#39;s wife, glimpsed before the trip and overheard in cell phone conversations, seems neurotic, insecure about this dip back into Marku0026#39;s pre-marital world. She may understandably feel jealous of the way, when Kurt calls and suggests the trip, Mark comes hopping.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThey take Marku0026#39;s better car, an old Volvo station wagon, and Kurtu0026#39;s directions lead them astray so at night they have to camp by what looks a bit like a dump, not really knowing exactly where they are. Thereu0026#39;s nothing to give away here. The two guys make the trip. They make it with Lucy, Marku0026#39;s dog, up to the hot spring the next afternoon. And the rustic shelter set up there for bathing is as Kurt had promised, simple and lovely. Kurt has said thereu0026#39;s not much difference between city and country now but this peaceful place belies that notion, except that when they return, their parting is quick, and Kurt is soon out and about by himself in a sleazy part of town and Mark is heading home with an Air America political talk show tuned in again just as it was when he headed out to get Kurt.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe irony is that all this meticulous observation reveals very little. When itu0026#39;s over, we donu0026#39;t know much about who these two men are. We donu0026#39;t know how they knew each other when younger or for how long; We donu0026#39;t know what Marku0026#39;s job is. And it is not clear that they find each other boring, because they havenu0026#39;t said a lot to each other. Mark has talked a little about his father, and Kurt has told a long story at the hot spring about shopping for a notebook and a dream he just had that provides the title. In his dream a woman told Kurt that u0026quot;sorrow is nothing but worn-out joy.u0026quot; Is the joy of Mark and Kurtu0026#39;s old friendship worn out and turned to sorrow? NYTimes critic Manohla Dargis, who wrote this week that this is u0026quot;one of the finest American films of the year,u0026quot; says that at their parting, u0026quot;from the way Kurt looks at Mark, it seems clear he knows there wonu0026#39;t be another reunion.u0026quot; Seems, perhaps; but it isnu0026#39;t really clear. And this is the weakness of Reichartu0026#39;s understated method: itu0026#39;s so subtle, and in its construction so minimal, it risks not really saying anything. Nature and the urban world speak clearly in Reichartu0026#39;s film, but thereu0026#39;s a substratum of feeling and experience that finds no voice.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eShown at various film festivals, including San Francisco, and released in Portland, Oregon in August and New York City (Film Forum) in September 2006.”