As I Lay Dying

Addie Bundren (Beth Grant) is dying. Her son Darl (James Franco) takes his brother Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green) on a delivery. It's $3 after all despite Jewel's need to be by her side. Their wagon gets stuck while she dies. Her wish is to be buried in home town of Jefferson. The whole family struggles to bring her body to her final resting place.

There are great actors in this movie. Tim Blake Nelson and Logan are terrific. Beth Grant is also great. In general, everybody is doing good work. The question is how did James Franco do as a director. I am not impressed. The most obvious technique is the split screen. The best thing I can ascribed to the technique is that it hides his amateurish directing style. When Beth Grant screams, the other half is trained on Jim Parrack. That's the only split-screen scene that really works. The movie struggles to gain authenticity and the split screen doesn't help at all. It looks like a modern film school technique in direct conflict with the rural backwoods feel of the family. Franco should be striving for authentic poverty. He fails as he throws various things on the wall. None of it really sticks. The actors are able to keep the audience's interest but they do it despite Franco. The river crossing shows some promise that Franco is functional as a director. Maybe he's over thinking this and tries too hard with the split screen and the actors talking at the camera. Thankfully the last 15 minutes don't have the split screen. It's some of the most compelling scenes in the movie.

"As I Lay Dying" is not an easy sell as a commercial film. The title already intimates that it will be a depressing story about Death. It is based on the novel of an author, who, while being a Nobel Laureate, is not really known for being very easy to read -- William Faulkner. Hence, we can expect a film that is similarly hard to watch. Upon giving it a go, I am not wrong on both counts.

This film is about the Bundrens, a poor but proud rural family from the boondocks of Mississippi. The mother Addie (Beth Grant) dies at the beginning of the film. Her husband Anse and their five children bring her coffin a long distance to Addie's hometown to be buried, in order to fulfill a dying wish. Along their long trip, we will get to know each character better as each one has his own little story to tell.

This is one very slow film which will strain the patience of the most moviegoers. The contemplative script is full of deep monologues as each character tells his version of life. It certainly reflects the style that Faulkner is famous for -- his stream of consciousness writing style as well as the multiple narrators.

This is the directorial debut of hard-working star James Franco, who has certainly gone a long way from when we first knew him as Harry Osborne in "Spider Man." He bravely tackles a difficult novel and he actually succeeds to visually interpret it very well. Once you get the drift of this languid storytelling style, and his attention-grabbing split screen technique, you will be mesmerized and drawn in. The imagery used is compelling as the grand country vistas contrast with intimate personal moments.

Easily the best performer in the cast is Tim Blake Nelson as the stubborn and irascible patriarch of the brood, Anse. He has most realistic portrayal with that hot-potato drawl of his, uttering the most maddening of pronouncements. There is actually humor in his unpleasantness.

The five Bundren children and the actors who play them, namely Cash (Jim Parrack), Darl (James Franco), Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green), Dewey Dell (Ahna O'Reilly) and little Vardaman (Brady Permenter), all have their moments. While Darl seemed to be the most centered of all the characters, ironically, it was James Franco who seemed to lack something in his portrayal. Maybe it is because we expect the most from him.

This film is not for everyone because of its glacial pace and dark brooding subject matter. But with the proper attitude and frame of mind, you may actually find this a fascinating rumination about life and mortality, as you immerse yourself in this grim slice of rural American life in the 1920s. 7/10.

I always wondered why James Franco was never vastly recognised as a film director than an actor. If you ask me, I say he was always at his best who mostly pick biographies and dramas. This movie is one of the year's widely undernoticed and under-appreciated. As always, that leads me to hate critics who divert the movie fans from this movie a watch.

This was one of the best dramas I had seen that set in the rural of the early 1900s. About the family of brothers and sister who lost their mother. As being in a remote village they struggle to travel nearby burial ground that is days away to reach. So theirs quest starts to take twists and turns among siblings and the mother nature. Each of them has individual hidden secrets that not related to their mother's death, but as a character. One after another letting us know theirs another face till the adventures ends in peace.

I really liked this movie. The tone of the setting of that era was so perfect. Feels like they all went for a century back to the original time to make the movie so accurately. It was based on the novel by the same name. Might be a fictional work, though, depicts the true lifestyle and transporting system of those times. No fights, no guns, a purely family based drama which might be a little brutal in parts, but kind of realistic according to that era. Don't miss this movie, a movie based on the old era is not frequent nowadays. Movies like this now and then really give a good opportunity to the modern people to know the forgotten culture. Hope you all realise what I am saying about the movie and its material.

I was thoroughly impressed with Franco's work. It has been so many years since I've read that book but, unlike many reviewers that said you'll be lost and confused.....not at all! I got this movie from the get go. It was fantastic and I enjoyed all of it. If you pay close attention, you can see one character in particular and his decent into madness. Frankly, how could you not after everything they go through?

These actors really played their parts well. Like many of Franco's movies, he wants you to really connect with each person and their individual stories, pain, feelings, etc. I def connected with these.

A good watch. Well done!

James Franco has seemingly set out to be the busiest man in Hollywood. Franco unfulfilled by just acting in recent times has taken on art, writing and adapting so called un-filmable novels with the forthcoming McCarthy adaptation Child of God premiering recently and this faithful and very intriguing adaptation of William Faulkner's revered 1930 book As I Lay Dying which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

It's clear that Franco filmed this atmospheric tale on a limited budget yet was able to recruit some serious acting talent to join him on screen as the Bundren family. Stand outs in the acting stakes are Tim Blake Nelson as toothless family head Anse and Marshall-Green as half cast and grizzled Jewel. All cast members acquit themselves well to difficult material, even Franco's real life buddy and funny man Danny McBride does well in a small cameo like roll. Franco's fine direction of fellow actors is commendable but his artistic decision not so much.

A strange choice by Franco is to put screen juxtaposition in a two frame format for roughly half of the films running time. This two pane structure comes off as merely annoying and takes away from the full screen beauty of much of the films images and natural landscape which are wonderfully captured by cinematographer Christina Voros. This technique was employed from an outsiders knowledge to portray the novels various voices and themes yet really is in no way integral to the films telling and as a finished product seems a tad on the pretentious side of things.

If you can overcome As I Lay Dying's almost tortuous opening 30 minutes where I found myself more than tempted to stop the film in its tracks there is much to admire in the film and by the last 20 minutes you will find yourself enthralled in this strange and depressing tale of a family lost in more ways than one. As I Lay Dying gives one hope that Franco will do justice to Child of God and perhaps one day his dream project of Blood Meridian.

3 concrete casts out of 5