Snowbound, moribund, New in Town

The topography, weather and architecture could be that of almost any town in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or, no doubt, Minnesota, the film’s setting and home state of one of its authors. (Turns out the actual location is wonderful-wonderful Winnipeg.) Nevertheless, the folks populating New Ulm feel very much of some self-consciously quirky cinematic non-place. The women of New Ulm especially twitter on like autistic munchkins over their knits and low-carb tapioca. Yet they’re no more the bi-product of some demented cliché than the arch, Miami-based corporate bunny with Friends hair and an endless array of heels these yokels are destined to humanize through scrapbooking and sufficient exposure to a bo-hunk single dad played, in an amusing reversal of type, by a jazz singer. So this fish out of water comedy contains within it a certain irony: it’s a story about a clash of cultures in which neither culture is recognizably human.

What can I tell you? I suppose it’s cute and all but New in Town, helmed by Danish director Jonas Elmer, is pretty hard to take. Written by Ken Rance and C. Jay Cox (surely, a pseudonym), it is so deeply formulaic as to inspire in you a certain awe when you’re not banging your fist to your head whispering over and over, please, make it stop. Watching Lucy the axe-woman (Renée Zellweger) and Ted the union rep (Harry Connick, Jr.) meet-cute over meatloaf served up by the pathologically generous Blanche (Siobhan Fallon) or bond over a day of crow hunting, you might think to yourself that this is a film made by people who genuinely love people—but are these people or just caricatures? Is this romance or just cynical screenwriting handbook determinism?

Zellweger’s proven herself a deft comedienne elsewhere but New in Town straightjackets her better impulses. Acting drunky-poo and falling face-first in a snow bank doesn’t flatter anybody. Connick, a real trooper, fares better, really selling the schmaltzier moments with striking aplomb, getting genuinely choked up in the much delayed dead wife speech telegraphed at the start of our story. It is the strange nature of this kind of movie that you get so desperate while watching it that you’re ready to weep along with the leads at the drop of a hat. But it’s hard to feel anything but impatience when the workingman-versus-the-corporate-creeps subplot kicks into full gear, mostly because rather than reflect something of the experience of real working people—which, yes, even a comedy with a happy ending can aspire to—we get a sham dreamed up by people who seem to have no idea what either factory or white-collar life is like. As we sink ever more into recession, this is just what we need, a bogus fairy tale.

Appaloosa: this town isn't big enough for generic innovation, but some solid character work should fit quite cosily

The post-classical western characteristically concerns a world in transition, but just as every trail must reach its terminal point, the genre lends itself equally well to tales of lives in transition, especially the end of male friendships. Based on the novel by Robert B. Parker, Appaloosa begins with Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) entering the eponymous town, still in its infancy, and thus easily overrun by opportunistic criminals. Both being men of few words, the town tamers’ arrival is accompanied by voice-over from Everett that immediately hints at Appaloosa’s role as a catalyst in their partnership, and the subsequent appearance of the widow Allison French (René Zellwegger) clearly seals the deal: she catches Virgil’s eye, and the elder gunfighter’s dormant urges toward domestication rise to the surface, softening his ruddy face and pale eyes and spelling the end of something as surely as the beginning.

The first film helmed by Harris since Pollock, his striking, bleak-poetic biopic and directorial debut, Appaloosa feels like a throwback, making few attempts to depart from the western’s established vernacular. Yet as these characters develop, as these actors flesh them out, and especially as the subtly sophisticated dynamics of their relationships inform the proceedings, it seems as though Appaloosa actually benefits from its comfort with generic tropes: by situating us in familiar territory, Harris help us focus on the details.

As embodied by Harris with transparent inner turmoil, Virgil’s flustered response to Allison’s presence is endearing, as are his attempts to culture himself by reading Emerson and checking with Everett every time he tries out some newly acquired vocabulary. Heightened by Mortensen’s remarkable ability to convey multiple agendas in concert, Everett’s guardedness around Allison makes an intriguing counterpoint, especially once she begins to reveal her true colours, a habit of zeroing in on whichever man seems to be “the boss stallion.” Her opportunism finally feels less like a punishable character defect than a perfectly honorable survival technique for any single, no-longer-young woman trying to eek out some kind of security in the untamed west. Zellwegger feels miscast here, less able to exhibit Allison’s extremes of beguiling and repelling than other, less ingratiating or mannered actresses, yet crucially, she never seems to judge her character, and her conflicted desires remain sympathetic.

The A-story of Appaloosa, in which Virgil and Everett contend with a corrupt, weak-willed establishment while trying to run the local, foreign-accented nasty (Jeremy Irons, suitably nasty) out of town, functions well enough, but is most interesting as a backdrop to the more diverting and subtext-dependent story of Virgil and Everett’s long goodbye. There is however a wonderful showdown scene that passes with brutal quickness and decidedly unceremonious bloodletting. “Everyone could shoot,” Harris’ Virgil offers by way of blackly humorous explanation. He could just as easily be referring to his considerable directorial skills. I don’t suspect he’ll win over as many admirers with his sophomore effort, but in the long view I believe Appaloosa, with its complex moral-twisting culminating in a memorable final sequence, will stand-up as a solid part of Harris’ hopefully still-growing directorial filmography.