Van Sant gleefully trots out this misguided existential experiment that’s gone completely awry. The result: Gerry is high-minded, hallucinatory hogwash.
Gerry (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:97
Fresh:58
Rotten:39
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: The type of uncompromising film that divides filmgoers over whether it is profound or pretentious.
Theatrical Release:Feb 14, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: In Gus Van Sant's GERRY, a film more concerned with atmosphere and visual breadth than with story or plot, a frivolous hike through the desert evolves into an existential journey for two young men.... In Gus Van Sant's GERRY, a film more concerned with atmosphere and visual breadth than with story or plot, a frivolous hike through the desert evolves into an existential journey for two young men. The film features only two characters, both named Gerry and played by the film's co-creators Casey Affleck and Matt Damon. Driving through a desert populated with imposing rock formations and bordered by miles of sky, the two Gerrys stop to see an unspecified "thing" which they are unable to find. The two young men then attempt to return to their car, but cannot find the pathway back. As they wander through the increasingly difficult desert terrain, their journey strains their friendship and becomes an exploration that is clearly about more than just finding the car. After several commercial projects, GERRY is in some ways a return to roots for director Gus Van Sant. The motifs of moving clouds and the desert imagery may recall his early works--MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO and EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES--but GERRY is even more ambitious than those revered projects. Highly influenced by Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr (WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES), the film uses minimal dialogue and long, languishing shots to achieve a meditative mood. [More]
Starring: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon
Starring: Casey Affleck, Matt Damon
Director: Gus Van Sant
Director: Gus Van Sant
Screenwriter: Casey Affleck, Gus Van Sant
Producer: Dany Wolf
Composer: Arvo Pärt
Studio: ThinkFilm
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Release:
Nov 11, 2003
Reviews for Gerry
A bold but barren and unrewarding art house stunt, Gerry's aggressively minimalist marriage of form and content comes off as bizarrely angry and deeply unfulfilling.
I'd be lying if I said it didn't annoy the hell out of me for most of its 103-minute running time. But I might watch it again sometime and try a little harder to get on its wavelength.
The results are part biblical allegory, part existential crucible, and remind one that anytime the meaning of life is questioned, it's positive -- because it presumes the possibility of meaning.
One can only gush so much about the way cinematographer Harris Savides captures the awesome and foreboding beauty of the desert without admitting that Van Sant's pseudo- existentialism is about as vacant as the movie's landscapes.
An open-ended and minimalist drama about identity, fate and the harsh reality of wilderness experiences for only the most adventuresome filmgoer.
There's hardly any dialogue, some wonderfully crafted scenes and miles and miles of hypnotic desert imagery, vast landscapes and a dreadfully poetic score.
I found it an invigorating journey, less like viewing a typical film than taking in a silent movie or (at times) a series of barely-moving photographs.
Gerry is an open-ended and minimalist drama about identity, fate and the harsh realities of wilderness experiences recommended only for the adventuresome filmgoer with large reserves of patience.
A series of images that have little meaning or emotional impact beyond their prettiness, and which become less compelling as time crawls slowly by.
With all its quirks, Gerry seeps into your pores like the wind-whipped sand that stings the faces of these disoriented hikers.
Van Sant ultimately reveals so little about this odd couple that we frankly don't give a damn what happens to them.
Gerry meanders, all right, but by the end of the movie, you know that you've been somewhere.
An anxious movie-object that might well wonder whether its minimalist aspiration is a matter of ambitious purity or empty pretense.
More so than Solaris, or even Dancer in the Dark, Gerry might be the most polarizing film to hit theatres in a long time.
...there's no denying that Van Sant has crafted a film that's utterly unique.
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