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Author:
Joyces Choices
Joyce Kulhawik, best known as the Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic for CBS-Boston (WBZ-TV 1981-2008), is currently lending her expertise as an arts critic/advocate, motivational speaker, and cancer crusader. Kulhawik is President of the Boston Theater Critics Association, a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, and Boston Online Film Critics Association. Kulhawik has covered local and national events from Boston and Broadway to Hollywood, reporting live from the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Grammys. Nationally, Kulhawik has co-hosted syndicated movie-review programs with Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin. Look for her arts & entertainment reviews online at JoycesChoices.com
Comments:
I couldn’t wait to see Focus Features “LET HIM GO,” based on the Larry Watson novel about grandparents who set out to rescue their grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family. I was not disappointed, but here’s a warning–the film packs a heart-crushing wallop. Set in the 50’s, “Let Him Go” is a neo-western thriller involving gun-toting grannies fighting for their families the old fashioned way, the men and the boys along for the ride.
Diane Lane and Kevin Costner give two of the best performances of their careers as Margaret and George Blackledge who’ve lost their adult son to a tragic accident. Their son’s widow Lorna (Kayli Carter) marries a new man they’ve got a bad feeling about: Donnie Weboy (Will Britain) who promptly confirms their worst fears: he’s abusive, and suddenly uproots the family including the Blackledge’s young grandson and moves them to the Weboy compound in a remote corner of North Dakota. Margaret sets out with her reluctant husband to rescue the boy and his mom, if she’s willing.
Writer/director Thomas Bezucha (“The Family Stone”) wordlessly renders simmering tension from the first frame which reveals a vast, silent, and deeply shadowed landscape, sparsely populated and uninterrupted by talk. The editing, the visuals and ambient sound tell all: a horse being saddled in a dark barn before dawn; eggs cracked into a cast iron skillet as sturdy as the soft-spoken woman at the helm. Her husband sits at the kitchen table drinking coffee; a baby gurgles to his mom; a young father bounces his baby boy to the music on the radio. Deft direction lets us know who these people are, and what they are to each other. The young mom and grandma don’t quite get on, and disaster lurks. A few minutes later, one devastating edit cuts to a wedding that’s darker than the funeral we were expecting. An ugly business is afoot and dread percolates.
Costner and Lane, here weathered movie stars, are exceedingly poignant as a couple who’ve managed to sustain tenderness, romance, and passion in a long marriage that has withstood tragedy. That relationship is the heart and soul of the film; they’ll need that bond as they make their way into the wilderness and confront the white-haired, chain smoking, whiskey-swigging psycho who heads up the Weboy clan, matriarch Blanche Weboy. Lesley Manville is as terrifying as a banshee in the role, emerging out of the dark, her head hovering above her kitchen table beneath the white glare of an overhead lamp. A snarl and a whiff of blood curls around each word as she greets the Blackledges. Blanche too has suffered loss, but her way is to rule with an iron fist and her overgrown lunks of sons are no match for her vicious brand of maternal oversight. The carefully calibrated scene of intimidation that follows is a masterclass in escalating anxiety. I nearly broke a cold sweat.
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11/7/2020