At Any Price - movie review

          “At Any Price” stars Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron as Henry and Dean Whipple, father and son seed farmers in rural Iowa. The son, Dean, aspires to a different career in race car driving and eschews anything related to the farm, including his father, who he has no respect for. Father Henry calls into question some of his own techniques in the highly competitive field of selling genetically modified seeds to farmers in the surrounding counties, which brings the unwanted scrutiny of the government.
          Henry desperately wants one of his sons to continue the multi-generational business but with his oldest son, Grant, climbing mountains in Argentina and Dean, rejecting him and his business outright, we see him walk out further on an ever narrowing plank over tumultuous water.
          I found myself holding my breath for much of this Greek tragedy of a movie, with its modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering. There is nothing subtle about its themes of love, aguish and the cost of success.  I was totally engaged in this film, so wanting it to go one way but knowing in my heart it would probably go another way.
          At the risk if giving away much of the enticing tension of this film, suffice it to say, while there may be questions about what happens after it’s over, there’s no question about what the conflicts are that surrounds Whipple and his family.
          Both Quaid and Efron are very believable in their performances of father and son determined to be together in a family yet individual enough to do things their own way, all the while wanting the approval from the other. Henry’s wife, Irene, played by Kim Dickens and his biggest seed competitor, Jim Johnson, played by Clancy Brown, strongly support the main characters and the quintessential “everything is at stake” story line.
          I recommend this film, not because it’s a blockbuster, which it isn’t, but because it’s yet another look into a different life than the one I live, a life that I can imagine exists yet am glad I’m just watching on the screen and not being a part of it myself. To see something different is the reason I go to the movies!

Four out of five possible ticket stubs.

Mud - movie review

          Mud, staring Matthew McConaughey as the title character, is a love story. It tells the tale of two 14 year-old boys, Ellis and Neckbone, who live in grimy, makeshift houseboats in Arkansas. The boys buzz around their Mississippi River ‘backyard' in a aluminum dory and one day discover, on a small island nearby, the unusual sight of a small cabin boat suspended high in the trees, obviously left over from a previous flood. That’s where they meet Mud who is hiding out in the cabin of the boat.

          Mud is in love with Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and is being pursued by bounty hunters for killing a man in Texas who hurt her. The young boys, believing true love is paramount, become inextricably involved in helping Mud find Juniper and in evading the gang who is after him. Interwoven around this main theme is the story of other love relationships:  Ellis’ parents’ struggle with love for each other, Ellis for an ‘older’ girl at school, and Miller (Mud’s father or uncle?) for Mud.

          As the first half hour of the film flows as slowly as the Mississippi past their houseboats, it picks up speed as the boys run messages between Mud and Juniper, who is at a dive motel in town and as they steal all the necessary equipment Mud needs in order to get the boat-in-the-trees running and as they sneak in and out of their homes with food and tools for Mud.

          The film does an excellent job of meshing potent love into a gritty story of disappointment, death and destruction. Ellis’ dad says, “You can’t trust love,” but Ellis risks his young neck exactly for the powerful pull of romantic love, both Mud and Juniper’s and his own for the girl at school.

          I really enjoyed this film. I am especially impressed when actors truly become the characters. Instead of Matthew McConaughey made up to be Mud, he truly was the complicated and violent man driven to rash actions by love. Tye Sheridan, who plays 14-year-old Ellis does an outstandingly convincing job of portraying a young boy who is struggling to find examples of love that have meaning for him. In addition, he gets a slew of examples of the hurt and pain that is also created by love.

Four out of possible five ticket stubs