Gerry Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)May 7th, 2004
Gerry
a video review
by Ryan Ellis
May 3, 2004
Unlike most of my high school classmates, I enjoyed Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot". The play has been adapted several times over the years, including the 1971 TV movie starring Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel. Okay, so 'Gerry' is not actually "Waiting For Godot", but it might as well be. Even though Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and director Gus Van Sant wrote their own original script, the spirit of Beckett's odd play is all through this film. I remember some of my fellow students carping that the play is pointless, that nothing happens, that the two main characters are idiots. The same criticisms could be made about 'Gerry', but I won't make them. Perhaps I wouldn't like this movie tomorrow or yesterday, but it seemed weirdly captivating on this sunny May afternoon.
That doesn't mean the movie isn't maddening. This movie has more clouds than dialogue. Van Sant and his two actors did the editing, allowing for most shots to continue long past the point you would expect. I assume there was nervous laughter when this movie played at festivals a few years ago and in art house theatres last winter. One extreme close-up of the two actors just walking along and saying nothing goes on forever. I can only imagine how the ADDers out there must have felt during this scene. "Cut to something else! Come on, cut! If you don't cut soon, I'm going to spaz out! Oh, man, I'm losin' it! Cut to a different shot!" Geez, AFFLECK nearly loses it and starts to laugh, so I have no doubt that audiences shift in their seats at this juncture.
So what's the point? Is Van Sant daring you to sit quietly and take this seriously? Or is he daring you to think it's all a big joke? Is he alienating the crowd and boring everyone to make an existentialist---or even pretentious---art film? Are the two Gerrys lovers or just friends? Are they two halves of the same person? Are they in some kind of purgatory, searching for a heaven or a hell? Have I already analyzed this movie far more than the filmmakers themselves ever did? The answers to those questions are for each viewer to figure out for him/herself. I can sympathize with anyone who hated 'Gerry'. And I can see how someone would love it. When the entire plot is about two guys with the same name getting lost on a hike in the wilderness, we're not talking easy-to-follow blockbuster here.
And, yes, both actors are named Gerry. In fact, that's not only their shared name, it's also an adjective. It's not a term of affection either. Damon and Affleck "Gerried" off the animal tracks or "Gerried" off the mountain, and they don't mean it in a glass-is-half-full kind of way. They seem to be wandering for days, losing hope and slowly dying without food or water. There is never all that much conversation, but they speak less and less as the movie meanders towards the end. Yup, this is a grocery movie, where I slipped off in thought and compiled my grocery list during the slow spots. Maybe that's the whole point. The characters are usually lost in thought about God knows what. Why shouldn't the audience react that way too?
Van Sant frequently cuts to extended shots of the sky and the desert. He loves clouds and he really loves clouds moving in time-lapse photography. These ARE pretty shots. Cinematographer Harris Savides has worked with the director three times now, even winning the 2003 New York Film Critics Circle Award for his photography on both this picture and Van Sant's unsatisfying critical darling, 'Elephant'. Hey, when your 100-minute movie is about 2 guys walking in the wilderness, the least you can do is shoot it in an interesting way. One of the final sequences in the movie is just gorgeous, as Damon trudges ahead of Affleck on a dried lakebed. The light plays off the landscape in different ways as they mope along. At one stage in this sequence, it looks like they're walking on water.
This movie isn't for the MTV crowd. Michael Bay would have a nervous breakdown because there isn't a cut every 5 seconds. True, about 10 or 15 minutes could have been shaved off the running time with some tighter editing and the story would not have been damaged. But this puzzling little film rewards those who have the patience to sit through it. Besides, I was never exasperated with 'Gerry'. Inexplicably, Affleck gets stuck on a monolithic rock and it's almost exciting. Will he get down? How will he get down? Plus, I didn't know where the story was going. In a strange movie like this, Gerry and Gerry could just happen across their car and drive home. Or they could die out there in the desert. Or maybe Godot could do more than he did for Vladimir and Estragon and show up in this movie.
To Gerry me, write to [email protected]. And Gerry my website at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
