Tim und Lee

Sometimes things have to be found. Sometimes they do not need to be found, but stay buried. But even the latter might need a bit of a refresh or redo of sorts. You'll understand once you've watched the movie. A movie that while romantic in some sense also will appall quite a few that will not like where the characters are going or what they are doing, literally and metaphorically speaking.

I'm not sure if it was just the script or something else, but the movie did attract a lot of talent. Some even just for really small roles, like Anna Kendrick and most better known to independent audiences, but still more than just stellar and performance wise really elevating the whole piece (no pun intended). It may be slow and it may not be within your moral values, but it's strong in the end and it just might be able to touch you with the way it tells the way of two adults who have lost their way ...

With a decent ending I would probably had given Digging For Fire a seven star rating. But the problem is that there is no logical ending with this movie. Why they do such a thing I don't really get. What's the point of telling a story when the end is unquestioned answers? That makes absolutely no sense to me. If there are questions or mysteries in a movie then give me some answers. Otherwise it's just a waste of my time for watching this. And it's not that the movie was not interesting or so, because to me it was. The actors were good, the story wasn't that bad. It's just the pointless ending. That brings the movie into the category of "movies not worth watching". Too bad.

Tim (Jake Johnson), his wife Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt) and son spend some time in her client's hillside home. Tim finds a gun in the yard but the cops are uninterested. Lee and her son visit her parents while Tim is suppose to finish his work. Instead of work, his friends Phil (Mike Birbiglia), Ray (Sam Rockwell) and others come to hang out. The guys start digging up where Tim found the gun and they find a bone. They are joined by others to do drugs. Tim and Max (Brie Larson) find a shoe and they continue the dig the next day finding even more bones. Ben (Orlando Bloom) rescues Lee from a drunk at a bar.

Director Joe Swanberg continues to make his improvisational indies. The idea of digging and discovery does infuse the movie with an obsessive quality. It works well to keep the intensity up. It does mean that Lee has the lesser half of the movie. In fact, the movie would work better pointing the focus at Tim. There are lots of ways the dig could go. The cops could actually come. The owner could come home early. However Swanberg seems more interested in the couple's relationship.

This is a movie about nothing. That's fine for a half-hour episode of Seinfeld, because it's amusing and entertaining. This movie is neither. It's humorless, tedious and somewhat painful to watch.

I like slice-of life movies. I don't need action. I don't need anything to really happen as long as I experience something I normally wouldn't experience in everyday life. This movie is anyone's very ordinary everyday life with some amount of coincidence and absurdity added. Rather than creating interest, though, these devices only prevent anything genuine from emerging.

Only one of the two main characters is believable, and both lack color and depth. That's a serious flaw in a movie where almost nothing happens. A transformation of sorts does take place, but it feels contrived. The events leading up to the transformation don't in any way suggest that it should occur, or why.

I'm giving the movie 4 out of 10 because someone might get something from it, and because there are a few brief moments that I liked. Also, the acting is at least adequate.The movie is inferior, but not horrible. Observing everyday life on a long walk would be a better way to spend 90 minutes, though.

I don't really like Joe Swanberg and his improvisational style, but I keep watching his movies because of the casts he assembles (plus they're usually super short and hardly painful or anything). There are a ton of good people in Digging for Fire (also Orlando Bloom), perhaps too many. Several have little to do. The plot here is borderline nonsensical, and, like the other Swanberg films I've seen, it doesn't amount to much in the end. Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt star as a married couple with a 3-year old. They have been asked to housesit for one of DeWitt's rich clients (I think she's a yoga instructor). While exploring, Johnson finds a gun and a bone half buried in the backyard. DeWitt immediately forbids Johnson from informing the police (as any normal human being would), and a second argument about their son's preschool sends her to the home of her parents (Judith Light and Sam Elliot). Meanwhile, Johnson throws a party (where Sam Rockwell, Mike Birbiglia, Anna Kendrick, Chris Messina and Brie Larson show up). He and Larson are intrigued by the mystery and start digging further. Later on, DeWitt will run into Orlando Bloom and both members of the couple are sexually tempted. The whole body in the backyard thing is just symbolism, but the police really ought to have been called.