97) Get LowDirector: Aaron SchneiderYear: 2010Plot Summary: A movie spun out of equal parts folk tale, fable and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party while he was still alive.
Get Low is about as faultless a movie as you'll find this year. Okay, it may not challenge cinema in any way and it doesn't do anything remarkable you won't have seen before, but it's as well-made, well-written and well-acted as any motion picture I've seen in the last 8 months.
Opening with a shot of a house, isolated on a hill and wreathed in flames, Get Low grabs you from the very first shot as a man emerges from the fire running for his life. From here on, it settles into a slow paced, subtle character study of an old man who has isolated himself from humanity for 40 years, but what keeps you enthralled is why this man chose to live the way he did: What actually happened in that opening scene.
It's not the most gripping narrative that's ever been conceived, but it remains involving throughout thanks to the spectacular performance by Robert Duvall. If there's one reason to go to your nearest cinema and fork out £5 to see Get Low it's him. At 79, he still manages to give one of the most subtle and understated yet heartbreaking and affecting performances I've seen in a long time.
Also worthy of note are Sissy Spacek who, despite her small role that really only exists to explore Felix's nature a little further, gives her character an incredible depth, and Bill Murray who is as funny, scheming and charming as he always is.
But the acting by this ensemble of actors never overshadows the minor features of Get Low. The directing, while simplistic, has the quality of an old-fashioned Hollywood drama. Instead of being overly cinematic, it allows the actors to explore their characters and allows the writing and storytelling to come to the foreground. And how is the writing? Well, let's just say it's a shoe-in for Best Original Screenplay come awards season. Perfectly balancing the absurdity of the story with the universal ideas of guilt and shame and the laugh-out-loud humour with the tear-jerking moments of sadness, Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell do a great job.
4/5
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