“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Directed By David Lowery
Starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Ben Foster, Keith Carradine, Nate Parker, Rami Malek
Drama
105 Mins
R

Less is more may be a common adage but it’s not one that applies to Ain’t Them Bodies Saint. From the simple old-timey title sequence, this is a film that aims at quiet contemplation but mostly just falls flat. While there are a lot of ideas hinted at throughout, little is ultimately brought to light and we’re left with a soft-gummed mass that asks little of and offers little to its audience.

Although director David Lowery is clearly trying to diverge from the modern path of filmmaking – electing to create something more singular, visually striking, and ultimately old-fashioned – his filmfalters. By framing it exclusively in an antiquated schema, Lowery has limited the reach of the film and deprived it of the emotive power he assumes it has.

We meet Ruth and Bob in the midst of a barren wheat field. Ruth is running away from the middle-of-nowhere shanty and her middle-of-nowhere life that she shares with her lover Bob. Catching up with her, Bob convinces her that their place in the world is destined to improve. They just need each other. She reluctantly but lovingly returns home with him but not before revealing that she is unintentionally pregnant with his child.

The scene quickly changes pace and we’re in the midst of a getaway with the cops hot on the tail of this duo. Holed up in their shanty, blasting off rounds at cops, Ruth puts a bullet in an officer. When the two surrender, however, it’s Bob who claims responsibility. Sentenced to 25 years in jail, Bob and Ruth part ways indefinitely but when Bob escapes, Ruth has to choose which path her and her four-year-old daughter will embark upon. Will she return to Bob and live life on the lamb or will she abandon the man who took the proverbial bullet for her? As she grapples with these questions, Bob makes his way towards her, chased by the ghost of his past in the form of three vigilantes hunting him for more than just money.

While starsCasey Affleck and Rooney Mara are certainly on point here, it’s the moustachioed Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma) that offers up the most solid performance of the group. Playing with subtlety and subtext, Foster isn’t your typical police officer but it’s hard to put your finger on why he works as well as he does. He’s lawful good to the T but there is an uncommon complexity to his undeserved adoration of Mara’s Ruth that makes him more intriguing than the morally grey characters surrounding him.

Deep within said moral greyness, Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) continues to give worthwhile performances and here plays with guilt and forgiveness. Burying her guilt rather than confronting it, she is an emotionally stranded character who has built castle-high walls around herself. But through her guarded facade is a woman lost. Even though we only see the initial inklings of her letting her guard down, Mara works the nuance and milks her rather slim character for all she’s worth.

Casey Affleck (Gone Baby Gone), on the other hand, is fine but I’m still not won over by him. He’s scraggly and pitiable but he lacks the oomph of a leading man, making it all the more difficult to root for such a flatly written character. As the vultures of his past circle closer, there is neither a big reveal nor any character revelation to up the stakes.

Ultimately, mystery can only go so far. When your faceless villains aren’t given any motives, they become bland sketches rather than shadowy demons. They don’t add anything to the picture because they are lifeless and instead just showcase the more hollow aspects of the film. The mystery runs itself dry and we’re left disappointed and unfulfilled.

While director of photography Bradford Young nabs some stunningly desolate imagery, winning him the Cinematography Award at Sundance, the camera work is mostly as wooden as the plot points. Perhaps I’ll never quite understand why this particular brand of dusty film, accented with brown and grey filters, always feels the need to be so restrained and inward peering but this egotistic meditation just serves to hold it back.

Although there are some intriguing themes taking place, none are aptly fleshed out. Even a committed cast can’t make magic out of nothing, especially with a script that’s this bare-bones and sulky. Posing as a film deeper than it is, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a rare case where the title is more provocative than the work.