43) The Dry Land
Director: Ryan Piers Williams
Year: 2010
Plot Summary: A U.S. soldier returning home from war struggles to reconcile his experiences abroad with the life and family he left in Texas.
Think of those powerful moments in The Hurt Locker when the main character comes back home after months of being in the war and can’t adjust to normal life. Now, imagine that sequence was a whole two-hour movie and you have a good idea of what to expect from The Dry Land. But this debut film from Ryan Piers Williams goes into tons more depth than The Hurt Locker did when presenting the effects that generally occur in soldiers who have come home from war. It explores the way that it can affect your job, your friendships, your lifestyle and, most of all, the way it can affect your relationship. Ryan O’Nan perfectly portrays this with his inability to admit there is something wrong despite his polarizing mood swings, violent outbursts, heavy drinking and disappearing. However, the unique thing that Williams does with The Dry Land is that he doesn’t just make a film about the effects it has on the soldier, but also the entire load of people around him. Whether it’s his mother who has lost her ability to live a normal life, the best friend who now doesn’t recognize him or the wife who is now afraid of him. Moreover, the film never shows a single shot of Iraq or touches on the political argument of whether we should or should not be there; it’s a film entirely about the humans that suffer from it as a result. In the following Q&A that I was able to attend, Williams and both of the stars, America Ferrera and Ryan O’Nan, spoke of the overwhelming amount of research they did for the film - speaking to veterans and their families, speaking to army bases and even going out to Iraq to visit the troops – and it’s really shows. Therefore, the main thing that really hit me about this movie was its realism. It’s not an easy watch and there’s little enjoyment to find in The Dry Land, but overall, it’s an informing, powerful and unique drama about the effects of war.
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