Post by StevePulaski on Jul 20, 2015 15:50:30 GMT -5
Old Fashioned (2015)
Directed by: Rik Swartzwelder
Rik Swartzwelder and Elizabeth Ann Roberts.
Rating: ★★½
Directed by: Rik Swartzwelder
Rik Swartzwelder and Elizabeth Ann Roberts.
Rating: ★★½
Old Fashioned begins aptly with the kind of 1950's Hollywood hokiness that came in the form of title cards, simplistic orchestration for background music, and warm and inviting cinematography to comfort and seduce the viewer so that he or she knows that everything was going to be okay. Being that this film comes distributed courtesy of Freestyle Releasing, a known distributor that releases Christian films in conjunction with Pure Flix Entertainment, I feared that this film would derail rather quickly into a petty bout of sermonizing and oversimplifications.
Pleasantly, however, only half of that is true and that half is the oversimplification. Old Fashioned, despite its religious affiliation, is not a film that sermonizes nor does it feel like a vacation Bible school film with a vacation Bible school budget. In many ways, this is a sad, deeply contemplative film about the isolation that can come with religion and personal punishment, where one's past haunts them so greatly they decide to cut themselves off from the conventions of the real world and fall prey to the dictation of the Bible. While Old Fashioned isn't that extreme, its undertones are indeed, and the result is a film that's an examination of modern relationships through a religious lens that's soft and moody.
Writer/director/producer Rik Swartzwelder in his cinematic debut plays Clay Walsh, a former frat boy, who has settled down in a sleepy Midwestern town. He runs an antique shop, leases out a building to tenants, and grounds himself in his puritanical beliefs on love, romance, and God. Clay's beliefs, which he bills as "theories," revolve around the refusal to date (because it only makes people good at dating rather than being good at talking and sharing feelings) and his refusal to kiss any woman he doesn't love. These strict, almost Quaker-like beliefs make him the butt of his coworker but loyal friend David (LeJon Woods), who stuck behind Clay's decision to mellow out following a spell of greed, deception, and rowdiness during his college days.
One day, a woman named Amber Hewson (Elizabeth Ann Roberts) runs out of gas near Clay's building and subsequently offers to rent out a place to stay for the time being. Amber takes an immediate interest to Clay's morals and "theories," and soon enough, the two bond because of their mutual state of loneliness and desire for "something different," whatever that different element may be. An admittedly corny but charming scene between the two takes place in a supermarket, with Clay and Amber meeting one another in the same aisle and proceeding to do the remainder of their shopping together. She buys sugarfree cinnamon gum and insists it can indeed be romantic and he buys wagon-wheel pasta, insisting the same although she doesn't quite believe him.
Much like Clay, Amber has a past she's driving away from, quiet literally in this case. Instead of grounding herself in hardened, old fashioned beliefs, she packs up her things and drives until she's out of gas, forming a new life where she stalled. She keeps a large jar atop her refrigerator, which she fills with spare cash throughout her stay. Once it fills up, she takes the money, buys gas, and heads out; a truly risky but ultimately free sense of life. Clay and Amber's relationship is predicated upon their trust in one another, as it should, but also their lack of knowledge of one another's past, which slowly comes to fruition through friends and acquaintances.
Old Fashioned, as an idea, sounds like yet another film from the traditional values crowd that harps on the alleged sanctity of heterosexual marriage and that love should be as picturesque as films and the media would lead you to believe it was decades ago. Yet, the mood of Old Fashioned doesn't always reflect that. Swartzwelder creates a decidedly bleak, almost dingy environment, one that's recognizable but relatively unromantic and unattractive. He paints a character who is shackled by his own religion and the boundaries set by nobody else but him that have, in turn, kept him trapped in a box for which he's growing too big. With that, as soon as he gets something that may compliment him and his hardened morals, he doesn't exactly know how to handle it without continuing to restrict himself. Clay doesn't know how to operate without self-correcting or over-correcting his mistakes until he's miserable and lonesome, and Amber, along with his friends, have been trying to show him despite being ignored and doubted.
Old Fashioned is a very potent film when it comes to its themes, but its execution in the emotional and romantic fields is about as obtuse and jarring as the latest Nicholas Sparks novels. The glaring mawkishness and overwrought sentimentality thrown in Old Fashioned, especially during its conclusion, are major detractors that turn the film from a serious depiction of loneliness into a facile one that is remedied by post-card depictions of love and romance. Had these emotional and romantic scenes been much more understated, this film would be in line with a mumblecore film that Joe Swanberg or even the brothers Duplass would make. However, the grating, contrived scenes of passion work to distract and, ultimately, cover up what this film should really be at the forefront of this film.
Religion, for all the hope, optimism, and relief it provides individuals, can isolate and hurt on a personal level and Old Fashioned shows this in a daring examination of self. It's a methodical exercise that drifts from being a contemplative introspection to introducing an ostensible duality that, in the end, doesn't seem to be too distant from our main subject. For as overwrought and incredulous as it can be, it's also surprisingly tender.
Starring: Rik Swartzwelder, Elizabeth Ann Roberts, and LeJon Woods. Directed by: Rik Swartzwelder.