GET LOW: The Film Babble Blog Review

GET LOW (Dir. Aaron Schneider, 2009)

Set in depression era Tennessee, this is a whimsical tale of a mysterious old hermit who has an unusual plan for his funeral – he wants it to be a party while he’s still alive.

A grizzled Robert Duvall is the hermit, the kind who’d put up a self made wooden sign stating: “No Damn Trespassing – Beware Of Mule” on the road leading to his rustic house.

From his night sweats we see that Duvall is sick and dying. Knowing he has little time left he goes into the small town he lives on the outskirts of to make arrangements. “About time for me to get low” he tells the local pastor (Gerald McRaney).

A young funeral home employee (Lucas Black) overhears this and tells his boss – a mustached worried wart of a man played beautifully by Bill Murray – that their ailing business may have a possible client.

This is a perfect timing for Murray as he was just talking about how down the death business has been lately. Murray: “What are the odds of a funeral home going broke? We have a business that everybody on earth needs. If you can’t make that work it’s got to be you. Right? And yet, I don’t know. What do you do when people don’t die?”

Everybody in town appears to have heard rumors and gossip of all sorts about Duvall’s past. He wants it known that everybody who has such stories should come tell them at his “funeral party.” Duvall in turn will tell his story.

Sissy Spacek is an old flame who appears to be charmed by the old codger, but like everybody else she is tight lipped about what went down back in the day.

As the film began with a flashback to a burning house with a silhouette of somebody on fire jumping out of an upstairs window we have some hints about what will be revealed.

GET LOW has a lot of folksy charm, but it feels like it needed to be a lot more fleshed out. It sails sweetly on the strength of its performances largely Duvall and Murray, but it doesn’t take the risks necessary to give it the emotional power it sorely lacks.

As an African American preacher that Duvall wishes would attend his “going away” affair, Bill Cobbs unfortunately reminds us that this is a whitewashed version of the ‘30s in the South – one with no detectable racism.

The depression era really has no baring on the plot - it could've taken place anywhere at any time, but as it is loosely based on a true story that happened in 1938 Tennessee, that's how we have it.

Also the idea that the town folk would open up at the funeral party and the stories would fly never comes to pass. The climatic event contains a wonderfully delivered confessional speech by Duvall, but after that the ending peters out.

Still, Duvall is always an appealing actor and he never plays a false note as this cantankerous character, and Murray’s masterful portrayal of a broken-down-yet-still-chugging-along-salesman oaf makes every scene he’s in as absorbing as they are amusing.

Spacek and Black are fine in their roles, but both are broad strokes as supporting players which would've benefited from just one more rewrite by the screenwriters (Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell).

It’s a light drama sprinkled with light comedy that gets a little too carried away with its own whimsy. That’s okay though, I have a feeling that many audiences will get carried away with it.

More later...

Former Comedy Superstar Bill Murray Now Hides Out In Indie Films

If you grew up in the ‘70s you most likely know Bill Murray from his 4 year stint on Saturday Night Live.

Murray came on the innovative late night program to replace breakout star Chevy Chase and took a bit to find his place among the “Not Ready For Prime Time Players”, but gradually got a groove going with such popular recurring characters as Nick the lounge singer, the “showbiz reporter” on Weekend Update, and the teenage Todd DiLaBounta– one of the most notable nerds in television history.

If you grew up in the ‘80s you probably know Bill Murray as a comedy movie superstar in such instant classics as CADDYSHACK, STRIPES, GHOST BUSTERS and SCROOGED. In an un-credited cameo he even stole TOOTSIE away from Dustin Hoffman and the rest of the extremely talented cast – such was his comic reign at the time.

If you came to Murray in the early ‘90s you got a puffier even smarmier incarnation of the former SNL schmoozer – this worked like a charm in such films as WHAT ABOUT BOB?, GROUNDHOG DAY, and his only directorial effort QUICK CHANGE, but not so much in such forgettable mediocre work as LARGER THAN LIFE (pair Murray with an elephant and wait for the laughs!) and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE.

Since the 90's Murray has been in an era in which, with a few glaring exceptions (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, GARFIELD and its sequel, various cameos, etc.), he has eschewed major studio work and worked mainly with directors such as Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, and Sofia Coppola whose LOST ON TRANSLATION earned Murray his only Academy Award nomination.

This anti-big budget blockbuster stance was noted by Roger Ebert In his review of Jarmusch’s THE LIMITS OF CONTROL last year. Ebert remarked that Murray “is appearing so frequently in such films I think it is time for him to star in a smutty action comedy.”

It’s telling that Murray has dismissed talk of GHOSTBUSTERS 3 as “a bunch of crock” because he seems happy where he is now – in small budget indie films like GET LOW which opens this Friday in Raleigh at the Rialto Theater.

In a cameo as himself in another Jarmusch film, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2004), Murray is recognized by rappers GZA and RZA of the Wu Tang Clan working as a waiter in a dive diner. RZA: “You’re Bill Murray – Bill-Groundhog-Day-Ghost-bustin’-ass Murray!”

Murray replies: “I know that, just don’t tell anybody.”

Seems pretty clear doesn’t it? Murray would rather hide out in the art houses these days than headline at the multiplex. He’s been there, done that.

Back during his post SNL movie star heyday (i.e. the early ‘80s), Murray already had different notions about what to do with his career than what audiences and studios expected.

Murray only did GHOST BUSTERS on the condition that his dream project – an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel THE RAZOR'S EDGE would be made in exchange by Columbia Pictures. The film, featuring Murray’s first dramatic performance, flopped and the actor took 4 years off from show business and retreated to France. His only appearance during this time being a brief cameo in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986).

Another more recent cameo in a major studio picture occurred in last year’s ZOMBIELAND. Murray appeared as himself – albeit disguised as a zombie version of himself for the purposes of warding off real zombies.

He’s accidentally shot by a scared Jesse Eisenberg with a rifle and is asked as he’s dying if he has any regrets.

He ponders the question: “‘Garfield’ maybe.”

In a recently published interview in GQ Murray reveals that the regret actually came from taking the role of Garfield because of a misunderstanding that Joel Coen had co-written the screenplay. Even in such expensively CGI saturated studio circumstances, Murray was looking for indie cred.

However, in that same interview Murray does say: “I want to go make a comedy like the ones I used to like to make. And…well, I think I can do it. I think I probably should direct one, too.”

Until that happens though, we’ll know where to find him – hiding out at the local art house theater away from the mainstream and pleased as punch at the prospects.

More later...