AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS - MIFF 2013

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” turned out to be a completely different film than what I thought I was seeing.  I was expecting a criminals in love and on the run type story reminiscent of Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” or Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us”, however where those films end is the exact point “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” begins.

Outlaws Bob Muldoon and Ruth Guthrie find themselves surrounded by local police officially announcing the end of their crime spree.  A short gunfight ensues which sees a police officer wounded from a shot from Ruth’s gun.  However due to the fact that Ruth is pregnant with their first child, Bob takes full responsibility for the shooting thus sealing his fate and saving Ruth from her own.  The couple’s love is so strong that Ruth promises Bob that she will wait for him forever, while Bob in return guarantees that he will be back one day to come get her and their child.  Five years goes by before Bob finally manages to escape from prison in an attempt to keep his promise to Ruth, but along his journey home he finds his past catching up with him.

“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” is an impeccably acted film with stellar performances from its three main stars; Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster, as well as an absolute scene stealing performance from Keith Carradine (who incidentally was the star of Altman’s “Thieves Like Us”) as Bob’s adoptive father.  He just elevates every scene that he is in; his work here is that powerful and striking.  Rooney Mara is once again great in a role far away from her star making performance as Lisbeth Salander.  Here she gets to show a much softer side of herself; a maternal side, as we see her struggling with the intense love she has for Bob, and the want to just up and leave with him, against her parental love and knowing that the right thing for her child may be to give up on the love that has kept her going for so long.  She is also a woman struggling with the guilt of knowing that it was her action that sent Bob to prison in the first place, and to the cop she shot, who has since become a positive influence in her and her daughter’s life.

Casey Affleck always brings a weight to his characters and he does so once again with his portrayal of Bob.  He plays him as a man with a singular purpose in life, a man with only one goal, but as a man who isn’t willing to work the hard yards to get it.  He wants what he wants and now.  A lot of Affleck’s performance is done in voice over via the letters that he writes to Ruth, which is all well and good and lends the film a sense of poetry to it, but Affleck really has to become aware of his annunciation because it seems with each role he takes, the more he mumbles making it at times very hard to understand what he is saying.

One thing that I really liked about “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” is that writer / director David Lowery has really captured Texas in the 1970’s.  He gives you a real sense of place and of time also.  This is a time in the world when everything seemed to move slower, so each action is more pronounced.  The widescreen cinematography really captures the space of Texas, with the gorgeous sundrenched autumn coloured images looking sublime, although I will admit that there were times when I felt parts of the movie where shot with light levels a little low making it hard to see exactly what was going on.  Helping in capturing the authenticity of the period is the drab costume design and brilliant art direction (particularly in regards to the sets). 

Overall, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” turned out to be a much more intimate film than I was expecting and as such I felt that the film had quite a “small” feel to it.  That is not to say that the film is not an achievement for its director David Lowery, because it is a really well put together film, it is just that the drama within is much more subdued and insular than I was expecting.  I guess at the end of the day all the film ends up saying is that your past sins will always catch up to you, and that in a battle of love, paternal love will always beat out romantic love.  Still it is obvious that David Lowery has a lot of talent and I am certainly interested in what he decides to do next.

3.5 Stars.