Love's a cruel goddess. That's rarely been more true than in this tragedy of doomed passion. Set in Texas in the 1970s, it sets up a love triangle between Bob Muldoon, an idealistic robber, his wife Ruth, and a detective, Patrick. In a standoff with the police, Ruth shoots Patrick in the shoulder, but Bob takes the rap and goes to prison. Waiting loyally for him to come out, Ruth gives birth to Bob's daughter, Sylvie, and Patrick secretly falls in love with Ruth. When Bob escapes jail, a cat and mouse game develops between the outlaw Bob and the cop Patrick. Love, freedom and Sylvie are all at stake.
Director and writer David Lowery avoids every cliche from the action-thriller, romance and noir handbooks, transmitting a palpable sense of the pain caused by forced absence from a loved one. He tightens the angst through deft pacing, avoiding any jailbreaks, high-speed car chases and shootouts, and instead making us feel the anxiety of waiting. That makes the very occasional moments of fierce, furious action even more endorphin-packed.
The team assembled by Lowery plays a huge role in this triumph. Bradford Young's stunning cinematography is like a moving canvas, with exteriors drenched in downbeat dark greens and golds. Interiors are shot in melancholy high-contrast. Young's ethereal lensing of Rooney Mara, who plays Ruth, transforms her into a gliding oil painting of the Virgin Mary.
Lowery uses other tools: swirling calligraphy crosses over from the opening titles to the letters that Bob writes from prison; music accentuates the film's poetry. Its title is a line from a country song, and Daniel Hart's score makes us feel like we are living through an extended dream of a song.
The performances, too, are superb. Casey Affleck, as Bob, shows himself again to be a master of the criminal outsider. He's more subtle than he was in The Killer Inside Me, where he played a sadistic sheriff, and even seems to reference this transition when Bob calls out: "I used to be the devil and now I'm just a man." Mara, freed of her dragon tattoo, combines grace with groundedness, speaking to single mothers everywhere when she complains: "I haven't slept for four years and am so tired."
The supporting cast are pitch-perfect, especially the twins Kennedie and Jacklynn Smith, who alternately play the toddler Sylvie. Charles Baker, Skinny Pete in Breaking Bad, gives a terrifying turn as an ice-blue-eyed assassin hellbent on blowing Bob to kingdom come.
The film is so singular, it's hard to place. At times, its elegiac visual quality evokes Terrence Malick, but Lowery's scripting is tighter and more accessible. His is truly a fresh voice, exhilarating to hear.
