Paul Schrader plants the seeds of an intriguing melodrama in his latest creation 鈥� .鈥�
Sigourney Weaver is a wealthy dowager with a stately name (Norma Haverhill), a large house and a dog she鈥檚 named porch dog. She also has a horticulturist (Joel Edgerton) in her employ who she occasionally calls on for extracurricular, indoor activities. There鈥檚 even a big charity auction coming up that she and the gardening staff are intensely focused on.
But this being a Schrader film (he wrote and directed), it is mostly window dressing. There even is a palpable (and, I鈥檇 imagine, intentional) artificiality to the whole endeavor, creating an unease that looms over the most mundane and superficially pleasant interactions. The ceremony never feels quite right. The house, though grand, is also sparse in its d茅cor. It feels like a set 鈥� not a place that a real human being lives. We don't even get to see the charity auction in full swing, never fulfilling Edgerton鈥檚 Narvel Roth (yes, Narvel) tease how much fun it is to 鈥渨atch grown men in pastel pants outbid each other for a flower.鈥�
This story is about a man with a violent past who has been saved by the precision of gardening. Even if it鈥檚 not a perfect trilogy, it鈥檚 at least in dialogue with his recent films 鈥淭he Card Counter鈥� and 鈥淔irst Reformed,鈥� both about solitary, tortured men whose professions double as metaphor. Actually, that鈥檚 true of most Schrader films. And it invites some memorable writing, mostly in voiceover, as Norvel opines and explains that 鈥済ardening is a belief in the future.鈥�
But Narvel didn鈥檛 come into the world as a gardener, or Narvel for that matter 鈥� these are identities he adopted later in life. This dutiful, buttoned up green thumb has underneath his practical coveralls a body covered in telling tattoos and a memory full of racially motivated murders. He is reformed now, mostly, but the music gets ominous when the shirt comes off and he stares at his past in the mirror. Like any good gardener knows, he can try to manage nature but that only goes so far.
The chaos factor comes in the form of Norma Haverhill鈥檚 great-niece, whose drug-addict mother has died and who she decides should apprentice with Narvel in the garden. Maya (Quintessa Swindell) quickly takes to gardening, clashes with Norma (who called her 鈥渕ixed blood鈥� and is reluctant to form a relationship) and falls for Narvel.
Before he started shooting the film, Schrader said he was thinking about a man torn between two women, one old enough to be his mother, one young enough to be his daughter.
鈥淲hat would happen in 鈥楾axi Driver鈥� if Cybill Shepherd and Jodie Foster went out to get coffee?鈥� he asked.
That premise, while possibly interesting, is really only given one scene that鈥檚 not quite as revelatory as Schrader suggested. And it certainly does nothing with the idea of Narvel being torn 鈥� once the young one enters the picture, beyond one rejection out of decorum, you know exactly where Narvel has fixated his gaze. Does this fit in with the gardening metaphors? Is Maya's mixed race supposed to be more meaningful because of his past? Are we really supposed to buy their connection or their ability to save one another? It's a little murky.
That kind of goes for the whole movie, which moves at a glacial pace even when it veers into thriller and revenge territory. But Edgerton is a sly and captivating performer, Weaver makes a meal out of every backhanded remark (and outfit), and Swindell, who is nonbinary, is a luminous presence.
Like a haphazardly planted garden, it鈥檚 lot of ideas that don鈥檛 seem to create anything terribly coherent but it has its individual pleasures nonetheless.
鈥淢aster Gardener,鈥� a Magnolia Pictures release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 鈥渂rief sexual content, nudity and language.鈥� Running time: 107 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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MPA Definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.
Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
