Around the Bend

Directed and Written by Jordan Roberts

Starring:  Michael Caine, Christopher Walken, Josh Lucas, Glenne Headly, Kathryn Hahn and Jonah Bobo

Rated R for language

Runtime: 85 minutes

USA Release date: October 14, 2004

Rating (out of 5 stars)--***1/2

What a refreshing look at Christopher Walken as a father trying to do the right thing in this sincere and touching film based on the first hand experience of new director/writer Jordan Roberts.  Michael Caine teams up with Walken, Josh Lucas and Glenne Headly to push the envelope of familial understanding when four generations of men reunite to exorcise past demons during a road trip in America’s southwest.  Writing the screenplay over a decade’s time and some 32 revisions, it is obvious Roberts didn’t write it for the money.

Josh Lucas plays Jason Lair, a thirty-something banker who’s wife has left him to go painting in Nepal because, although not stated, the relationship is going nowhere.  This is entirely understandable because Jason himself is going nowhere.  A loving enough husband and father, something is eating him and it is not being helped by the presence of his grandfather Henry.

Henry is an elderly retired anthropologist currently co-habitating with Jason and his son Zack (Jonah Bobo) and preparing to die.  Michael Caine plays Henry in a brief but sterling performance that by itself is worth the price of admission.  Henry accepts the inevitability of death as much as he accepts the responsibilities of family.  Each family member needs the others; each carries another and is carried in turn.  The time has come for this family to carry Turner, Jason’s long-lost father.

This movie will be a hit amongst the legions of Christopher Walken fans, because his portrayal of Turner is its center-piece.  The archetype of parentage gone terribly wrong, Walken plays a pater so unfamiliaris that we hardly know where to start in understanding all that is ails him.  A failed musician and successful drug addict and convict, Turner mysteriously shows up on the eve of his father’s death after having abandoned his son some thirty years earlier.  He says hello and then announces he is leaving the next morning for parts unknown.  A predictable behavior pattern for a convict on the run, perhaps, and a heel, even more so.  But why the meeting in the first place?  Why not just let sleeping (or buried) dogs lie?  The answer is played out in Henry’s carefully planned road trip—a wild goose chase of exorcism.

The doorstep upon which Turner turns up includes Henry, Jason, Jason’s son Zach and Henry’s Danish Nurse Katrina (Glenne Hedley).  Katrina loves Henry and Henry loves to spy on Katrina in, well, personal situations.  Katrina watches monster movies to stave off the grief of the inevitable soon-to-be passing of her charge and even manages a pass at Turner in dealing with it all.  But Henry has more on his mind than simply spying on the night gowned Katrina and pondering if he should be mummified or cremated.  He has assembled the cast of the final play of his life; the play that will be his living funeral, which will take place as the remaining three males of the family embark on their journey to spread ashes, uncover secrets and make their final confessions.

Caine and Hedley together bring an old world sense of rising above it all to the specter of death.  Henry is about to die and spies on the attractive Katrina hoping to get that last shot before his passing.  Katrina has already begun her grieving well before the death of her charge, perhaps not the most positive approach in the world for a nurse, and defrays her grief by watching horror movies featuring multiple detached limbs and the appropriate spurting blood.  This is the way of humor in “Around the Bend.”  Humor that is the natural result of rising above it all.

But rising above what?  Above the demons, of course.  Digging up the past and rising above the ruins of humiliation and despair to enjoy life on that high rock, close to the sun, where we all want our ashes to land someday.  Rising above wormy death to join the universe in everlasting life; or at least an everlasting road trip in a worn Volkswagen minibus that defies the forces of gravity as it speeds through the stark desert southwest.

Rounding out the cast is Jonah Bobo as Zach, Jason’s eight year old son who has been left behind with Jason in favor of his mother’s Nepal junket.  Zach plays the part of the audience in the movie, asking the dumb questions so we won’t have to.  “Is Grandpa really going to be a mummy?”  “You said Turner was dead.”  And so forth.

Director/writer Roberts does not believe that there are jokes in life: only circumstances that we may, or may not, find funny.  “Around the Bend” is a marvelous hodge-podge of such circumstances playing around in the depths of the Volkswagen and coming out of the one-eyed CD player that belts out Leon Russell’s “Roll Away the Stone” as the foursome tries to find the right stone amongst them all.

The movie ambles along good naturedly enough, from motel to campsite and from fried chicken shack to fried chicken shack (the product placement revenues alone probably paid for the cost of filming); retracing the lives of Henry and Turner until the final rolling away of the stone.  The final digging up of the artifact.  The final exorcism of the demons.  The final dance by Walken (no kidding...).

It was apparent that both Mr. Walken and Mr. Caine enjoyed making this movie.  The emotion in the screenplay is evident and the two appeared to understand and appreciate the sincerity of the material.  The autobiographical nature of Jordan Roberts' story empowered him to develop some powerful moments in the screenplay and this catalyzed two great performances.

Josh Lucas had to struggle with his part.  His role is a "normal" man living with intense feelings of alienation and loss as a result of being abused and abandoned by his father.  Although Roberts had apparently been there, it does not appear that Mr. Lucas had the same benefit of direct experience.  His presentation was forced and lacked depth of feeling.  Although it is unfair to compare him to Walken and Caine, he will be so-compared and will pale in comparison.

The overall pacing of the film was slower than I like and the sparse setting of the Southwest did not add excitement, although the shots amidst the Anasazi ruins were stirring given Henry's archeological background and the underlying theme of digging up the past.  The studio must be given full credit for producing a film that is appropriate for viewers of all ages (in spite of some R language) and is a sincere exploration of family values and interactions.  There are too few such films being made today.