Gerry Review
After a Hollywood detour that led to the career low that was Finding_Forrester, Gus_Van_Sant turned to European cinema and his indie roots to make Gerry, a fascinating, if flawed, return to form for the maverick filmmaker. The premise is simple: two friends named Gerry go for a hike in the Western wilderness and lose their way. That existential setup becomes the springboard for a visually stunning meditation on American expansionism and the implacability of nature, among other themes. Van_Sant announces his grand ambitions early in the picture, with a long, wordless sequence following the two Gerrys as they drive down a winding desert highway to a tinkling score by Arvo_Part. The rest of the movie is no less audacious. Van_Sant has made no secret of the influence of Hungarian filmmaker Bela_Tarr on Gerry. His master stroke is to transpose Tarr's rigorous, long-take aesthetic to the American West. The result is a landscape symphony of unusual power, at once elemental and stylized. As the wandering Gerrys, Matt_Damon and Casey_Affleck are appropriately affectless. Though the sparse dialogue occasionally calls attention to its deliberate banality, the exchanges work for the most part, offering a stark counterpoint to the environment's grandeur. For all its formal brilliance, Gerry is not as profound as it thinks it is, suffering from a surfeit of underdeveloped ideas and an overdetermined ending. Considering its reach, however, the movie's flaws are forgivable. While it may not be a masterpiece, Gerry at least holds out hope that Van_Sant may have found his way again. Elbert Ventura, Rovi
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