Director Report Card: Kelly Reichardt (2006)

2. Old Joy

Despite “River of Grass” receiving an enthusiastic reaction from critics, Kelly Reichardt had difficulty securing funding for another feature film. Twelve years would pass before her next feature length film would debut. In that time, simply to prove she could still make movies, she directed two super-8 shorts: “Ode,” an adaptation of “Ode to Bobbie Joe” that is just shy of feature length at 50 minutes, and the experimental “Then a Year.” Finally, in 2006, Reichardt would get a chance to create the proper follow-up to “River of Grass.” “Old Joy” would also become a critical darling and truly be the breakthrough the filmmaker was looking for.

Mark and Kurt were, once, extremely close friends, both of them living a hippy-ish lifestyle. However, the two have grown apart in more recent years. Mark has married and his wife is expecting their first child, while Kurt continues to live a bohemian existence. Out of the blue, Mark receives a phone call from Kurt. He invites him on a hike through the Cascade Mountains, to a remote spa. Mark agrees and, while walking through the forest, the two realize the ways they have changed and the ways they've stayed the same.

“Old Joy” is another one of Kelly Reichardt's “snapshot” movies. Much like her debut, a decade earlier, the film's run time is brief at around the seventy minute mark. We drop in on our protagonists' lives, spend a few days with them, and then we drop back out. We never learn more about Mark's relationship with his wife. The only details we discover concerning the men's friendships are what they discuss during their trip. They reference mysterious old acquaintances and past adventures. This provides a lived-in, detailed quality to “Old Joy.” These characters have pasts, memories, experiences. We may not see them but they are there, the film providing only a peek of a more detailed world.

What most struck me about “Old Joy” is the bittersweet quality that runs through the entire movie. This is a story characterized by the sense that one story is ending while another is beginning. Mark and his wife are about to become parents. He has a house now, a real job. Kurt, meanwhile, belongs to a different world, wilder and with fewer responsibilities. While the film never confirms as much, Mark and Kurt's friendship is ending. They belong to different worlds now, which don't seem likely to intersect again. This weekend hike is their final adventure together. “Old Joy” captures a feeling anyone that has had a long friendship slowly erode over time can relate to.

As in “Rivers of Grass,” Reichardt focuses in on characters who feel trapped by their lots in life. Even if their friendship seems destined to wither, Mark and Kurt have plenty of things in common. We only get a brief glimpse of Mark's married life but it hardly seems pleasant. In their one scene together, he nearly gets into a fight with his pregnant wife about his old friendship. Mark is clearly not totally prepared to become a father. Kurt, meanwhile, seems unable to adapt to traditional society. He's getting too old now to be a hippy vagabond but settled life doesn't seem to suit him much either. There's no easy escapes from the paths both men are on.

Since it's about two main characters who are very different, “Old Joy” is a film about contrast. During its opening credits, as Mark drives to the meeting place, he listens to noisy and loud talk radio. This is quite different from the quiet of the forest that characterizes most of the film. Thus, the urban and wooded locations the story takes place in are established as very different places. In the final scene, Kurt returns to the city, seeming out-of-place. The green peace of the forest stands in stark contrast to the concrete crowds of urban life. Just as Mark and Kurt find themselves on different paths in life, “Old Joy” shows the stark divide in their mutual environments too.

Throughout the film, there seems to be something unsaid between Mark and Kurt. We never learn precisely why the two drifted apart, if there was any inciting incidents that created a wedge or if they just slowly stopped interacting. They were clearly close but a strange tension is between them throughout. This unspoken enmity climaxes once the two guys get to the hot spring. Both men in the nude, Kurt goes to massage Mark's shoulders. It's the homoerotic encounter the entire film has been building towards, a moment of intimacy between the two men that seems inevitable. Whether this is a pay-off to years of not-so-platonic longing or a repeat of a past event, we are only left to guess. Yet “Old Joy” seems to quietly question the manly affection, and the male psyche's difficulty sometimes with processing it, that inevitably floats underneath most longtime male friendships.

These quiet moments are not the only insights into our characters' lives we get in “Old Joy.” While sitting around the fire place, Mark and Kurt goof around. They smoke, drink, and fire Nerf guns at piles of beer cans. This leads into “Old Joy's” most vocal sequence. Kurt delivers a rambling monologue about the nature of the universe, as he perceives it. In a usually quiet film, it's a noticeably talky moment. This not only gives us insight into how Kurt's mind works – he really seems to be a burned-out hippy – but it seems to be a genuine moment. I have no idea how tightly Reichardt scripts her films but this conversations sure seem improvised. “Old Joy” accurately captures the long digressions friends can get into when they talk for hours.

Once again, Kelly Reichardt casts her tiny indie film with largely unknown actors. Daniel London plays Mark. London has carved out a decent career for himself as a character actor without gaining much recognition. As Mark, he captures a perpetual sense of unease. London creates the feeling that this guy is never totally comfortable in his own skin. If anyone needs a visit to a hot spring, it's him. Yet he also has an everyman quality that makes him easy to relate too. Mark could be just about any dude you know, a little uneasy but functioning as best as he can in a demanding world.

Co-starring alongside London is Will Oldham as Kurt. Oldham seems to work just as often as a musician but has cropped up in multiple independent flicks over the years. Compared to the quiet Mark, Oldham has the undoubtedly showier part. Kurt gets to ramble on about his odd philosophies and old hippy friends of both men. Yet Oldham also summons up a quieter sense of melancholy. Kurt is aware that he is increasingly becoming an anachronism, in a world that's changing faster than he can adapt. Without drawing too much attention to it, Oldham hints at this discomfort. It's the most easily high-lighted aspect of a nuanced performances.

As always, Reichardt watches the proceedings with a patient, focused eye. One of the shorts she made during her lengthy break from features was “Then a Year.” That short played sound clips from true crime shows over blurry footage of trees and animals. In some ways, “Old Joy” feels like a natural extension of that idea. Often, she depicts her human characters as distant figures moving through the lush, bright green Pacific Northwest woods. This interest in nature continues “Old Joy's” fascination with contrast, the two men standing out among the totally natural environments. As always, Reichardt's interest in taking her time and focusing on the world around the cast creates a keen sense of location, of time and place.

The biggest marquee name in “Old Joy” isn't any of the actors in front of the camera or even necessarily the director behind it. It's the band scoring the film. Yo La Tengo, those critically acclaimed lo-fi indie rockers, provides the music. I'm not really a fan of the band but their particular style seems especially well suited to the film. The sparse guitars of “Leaving Home,” eventually evolving into a driving melody, suit the wandering tone of the film well. Tracks like “Getting Lost” or “Driving Home” are a lot more like what I'd expect from the band, as far as vaguely pretty but largely directionless musical expression goes. The end credits theme has a lot more energy then you'd expect, while still matching the laid-back atmosphere of the film it accompanies.

“Old Joy” is one of those movies that you appreciate more as you re-watch it. On a first viewing, it's a quiet – maybe too quiet – and touching drama. Repeat viewings show that it has more depth than you initially realize. It says  a lot about masculine friendships and continues to show how Reichardt's themes developed in-between her first feature and its belated follow-up. It became another critically acclaimed drama that, naturally, nobody but devoted film fans saw. Of course, now it's in the Criterion Collection and Reichardt's profile has only grown, meaning more people than ever are probably checking out “Old Joy” now. [Grade: B+]