The premise of Old West clashing with modern suburbia is fresh and initially intriguing, but the second act degenerates into a clumsy jumble of events which strain credibility.
The premise of Old West clashing with modern suburbia is fresh and initially intriguing, but the second act degenerates into a clumsy jumble of events which strain credibility.
A romance between a teenage girl and a thirtysomething drifter takes the young woman down a dangerous and unexpected path in this independent drama. Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) is a pretty 18-year-old whose father, Wade (David Morse), is the sheriff of a town in California's San Fernando Valley. Tobe is driving to the beach with some friends when she stops at a filling station and meets gas jockey Harlan (Edward Norton), who dresses like a cowpoke and claims to have recently relocated to Los Angeles
from South Dakota. Harlan is immediately and obviously taken with Tobe, and when she asks him to tag along for the day, he impulsively quits his job to follow her. Tobe and Harlan soon become a couple, but Wade is convinced Harlan is not all he claims to be, and Tobe begins to wonder if her father might be right when Harlan takes her horseback riding and their date is cut short after police inform them the horses have been stolen from an rancher (Bruce Dern) whom Harlan claims is a friend - and who promptly turns up with a gun to confront both of them, insisting that he has never seen Harlan before. Tobe's suspicions grow when Harlan offers to teach her little brother, Lonnie (Rory Culkin), how to shoot using a pair of real .45 revolvers, as his actions become less charming and more worrisome. Leading man Edward Norton also served as producer on this project. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Even if this drama from David Jacobson can't quite cover all the territory the director-writer is looking to survey, it still's one of the most original movies in a long time.
Norton sells it, as far as all of this can possibly go. Even if you doubt some of the action, you never doubt the existence of Harlan, a man out of time and out of options.
With a distant yet affecting performance, Norton (Fight Club, The Italian Job) reminds us why he's often considered among the best American actors, right alongside Sean Penn.
Jacobson examines the life and death of the western and its incompatibility with the youth of today ... a fascinating, yet slightly off-balance, mix of tribute and scrutiny.
A tale which, apart from its basic conceptual kinship to classic western films, is wholly original and deeply prescient about the darker shoals of human nature.
Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood turn in strong lead performances, but their talent alone isn't enough to set David Jacobson's sun-bleached, modern-day Western on fire.
Down in the Valley is a bit of a jumble, switching tones and genres quickly from the first to second half, but I'm still glad I watched it. The performances by all of the main actors, especially Norton, are pitch perfect and make this movie better than it probably is. The first half is the good half, building up a
sweet romance that is quiet and touching, but the second half has tons of implausible moments that make this otherwise great movie a little hard to swallow. I wish the screenplay was better than it is, but it is still worth a rental based on everything else.
Down in The Valley What a great film...very layered and subtle. It is beautifully shot and the four main characters are original and yet painfully familiar in their alienation, anger, and despair. The Cowboy character played by Edward Norton (who is amazing) seems so simple at first but as he is drawn into the family
his character and the truth unravels in ways that left me at a stand still near the end of the film. The character played by Rory Culkin, "Twig", says very little throughout the film and yet he conveys a sense of yearning and loneliness almost too painful to bare. But even he undergoes an unexpected transformation by the end of the film. The lead is a beautiful creature on the screen. Her relationship with the Cowboy seemed unlikely at first and then became completely believable, especially in the bathtub scene. This is a film for lovers of independent film and psychological kinds of cinema. There are also several scenes that border on surrealism. This film will leave you thinking and wondering about your life
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