Main Street

I watched to the end, so it wasn't "that bad", as I saw the movie on a DVD at home and could have turned it off at any time. But that much said, it barely crossed my personal limit for "tolerable". The storyline is pretty dull and nothing can "fix" this. When you start with an uninteresting story, you get an uninteresting movie. I have no idea what Colin Firth was thinking to accept this part. I chose the movie because I figured he was a star and would surely only appear in a solidly good movie. I was wrong! Perhaps he thought it would be a challenge for him to play a character who is a Texan and felt this would give him a chance to break into being offered also roles for characters who are supposed to speak with American accents. He did quite well in terms of portraying a Texan, but that hardly compensated for a lack of an interesting plot.

Horton Foote (1916 - 2009) ) was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta. His last original screenplay as MAIN STREET: it is fortunate that he didn't live to see it produced. MAIN STREET seems to have something to say - that the economic crisis has devastated small towns to the point of making questionable decisions out of desperation about improving their near ghost town status; that lessons from around the world (Chernobyl and Fukushima, etc) about toxic waste too often go unheeded; that flight of youth from small towns merely to seek change is not always emotionally convincing a decision: that family history and the accoutrements of same don't necessarily guarantee survival for descendants. And out of these plausible concerns could come a decent story, but here the result is flatline. In his film debut as a director John Doyle (known for fine productions of the operas Peter Grimes, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and the musical comedy Company) he fails to show a grasp of the use of film to tell a story and we are left with a stew of separate ingredients that seem almost immiscible.

Durham, North Carolina is the setting - a town shrinking by the year because of lack of jobs and crumbling businesses - and the major (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) is desperate, deciding whether to schedule or move or cancel the annual parade from Thanksgiving to Christmas due to the town's lack of interest and depression. Enter Gus Leroy (Colin Firth) who has rented a defunct tobacco warehouse from a town widow Georgiana Carr (Ellen Burstyn) to store canisters of Hazardous Waste awaiting transport to Vernon, Texas for burying: Leroy's apparent Ecology informed company offers the Durham city council the opportunity for economic resurrection. Georgiana has misgivings about the rental and is faced with the fact that her trust fund form her wealthy father is depleted and she must consider selling the mansion in which she has lived since her birth. She seeks advice form her niece Willa (Patricia Clarkson) who at first objects but on meeting Leroy falls for the man and the project. As a sidebar another family faces changes: young Mary Saunders (Amber Tamblyn) is under the spell of her boss (Andrew McCarthy) but still loves her high school sweetheart Harris (Orlando Bloom), a young cop who is studying law at night and living with his depressed mother (Margo Martindale), urging Harris to 'go steady' with Mary and forget law school to stay in Durham. The human factor enters: there is an accident of one truck hauling canisters (and event that changes the outlook of the wannabe entrepreneur Leroy), Mary's boss is married, and the concept of 'progress' in the decaying town of Durham changes along with the changes in the folk involved in the story.

Aside from failing to involve the audience in the story or the characters, the conundrum is why would such a stellar cast of brilliant actors (Colin Firth, Patricia Clarkson, Ellen Burstyn, Orlando Bloom) sign on for such an obvious box office disaster (it is yet to be released)? One can only assume that it was an homage to the memory of the brilliant writer Horton Foote. It is a shame this screenplay is the last note of the legacy he left us.

Grady Harp

This could remind one of a Steven Soderbergh snore fest. It is a lingering, slow moving, vaguely interesting story of the modern American condition that promises much but delivers almost nothing.

It is a character study of realistic people in a realistic situation forced to make difficult choices that come from a changing society. But it is all very vapid and the plot points are as unresolved and unanswered as is the finality of it all.

The ending is so anti-climactic and the "change of mind and heart" from the "villain" of the piece is just abrupt and embarrassing, as is the final narration that is nothing but consummate corn-pone. The storage of hazardous waste in a formerly hazardous to your health tobacco facility is the one and only irony and the film is just uninspired.

"The company sent me to look for towns or cities that might benefit from our services. Durham was on my list." The town of Durham, like most cities has been hit hard by the bad economy. People are moving out and the unemployment rate is high. Gus Leroy (Firth) comes into town with a track record of helping towns recover and end unemployment. The town is unsure of his method, storing hazardous waste until it can be transported. This is another movie that proves that just because a movie has no CGI or explosions every five minutes it receives no marketing and the release it needs. This is a movie that is full of great actors and great performances. The plot is not that exciting, but the acting makes up for it. Colin Firth does a fantastic job in this movie of playing a guy who you aren't sure of. The entire movie he keeps you on edge wondering if he is really as good as he seems. Much like "Company Men" this is a movie that is a serious subject that sounds boring when you read it, but the acting makes it great. A must watch. Overall, a great movie filled with great acting that deserves a bigger audience then it will get. I give it an A.

Would I watch again? - Yes I would.

*Also try - Company Men

When I saw the movie had actors Colin Firth, Orlando Bloom, Amber Tamblyn, Patricia Clarkson participating I thought this would be a movie worth watching, unfortunately I was mistaken.

While the actors do a good job with what they were provided with, the movie does nothing for them, it is a go nowhere movie that to me was a complete waste of time, thankfully not a huge amount of time to waste considering the length of the movie.

I have long been a big fan of Colin Firth and generally seek out movies that he is in. Unfortunately, while I felt he did a good job I think he made a bad choice with this one.

4 out of 10 for me.