Digging for Fire

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.

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.

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.

Another chill Swanberg movie, where likable, real characters talk about life's problems, or talk around them (it's not mumblecore anymore I guess). This one is driven by maybe his most straight-forward storyline yet; ostensibly it's about re-kindling a marriage through both a literal and figurative "Digging For Fire."

A great cast, character-driven humor (who knew Orlando Bloom would be a fit in something like this?) and a coked up Sam Rockwell -- would someone please give this man a seriously great role?

I liked it quite a bit, like I like most of Swanberg's stuff, but I'm still waiting for that breakthrough experience from him. The kind of humanity and minor profundity of Linklater or someone like that.

Rosemarie dewitt, jake johnson are lee and tim, who stay in a friend's house on a vacation. While there, tim finds a gun and a bone in the back yard dirt. And obsesses over digging up the yard to find more, with a bunch of loud, rowdy friends. Lee takes the kid and drives to her parents, which seems to be the beginning of a naughty night for her. Appearances by orlando bloom, sam rockwell, judith light, ron livingston, mike birbiglia. Tim does a whole lot of philosophizing, in between shovels of dirt. He doesn't seem capable of just plain small talk. Lots of scenes stapled together, but not much of a story. A clever scene when lee says "daddy is home, doing his homework"... cut to daddy, smoking a joint, as the camera pans past the tax forms. I'm guessing they won't be invited back to stay at this house! They dig up the yard, wear the owner's clothes, and break things. Terrible people. Directed by joe swanberg. Dewitt is married to livingston, probably best known for office space! He and johnson have appeared in other films directed by swanberg. Jude, the young boy also happens to be the director's son! It's a bit slow... needed more of a cohesive story. It could have been great.