Old Joy

In Kelly Reichart's Old Joy, two thirty-something males who live in the Pacific Northwest reunite for a day-and-a-half trip by car and on foot to a hot spring in Oregon's Cascade Mountains and discover some hours of peace and mutual solitude. It seems that the years have separated them. Once great friends, they haven't been in touch for a while. They aren't the same guys they were and perhaps haven't much in common any more. The stocky, balding, bearded, single Kurt (Will Oldham) is a semi-hippie living marginally who smokes a lot of grass. Mark (Daniel London) is thin and married and both he and his pregnant wife work hard at their jobs. But Reichart is too unemphatic, and her understated dialogue is too naturalistic, for this implied discovery of lost friendship to have any drama, or for the differences between the two men to have any clear point. This is good film-making, but it seems almost at cross purposes with itself.

The colors are rich, the camera is precise, the sounds are finely recorded. The trip is meticulously observed. Reichart sees her little piece of ivory through a magnifying glass. The way Mark and Kurt talk seems authentic and true. They don't present back-stories, because it wouldn't be natural for them to do so -- though Kurt acknowledges Mark's daring in having a child; he says he's never done anything so "real." Mark's wife, glimpsed before the trip and overheard in cell phone conversations, seems neurotic, insecure about this dip back into Mark's pre-marital world. She may understandably feel jealous of the way, when Kurt calls and suggests the trip, Mark comes hopping.

They take Mark's better car, an old Volvo station wagon, and Kurt's directions lead them astray so at night they have to camp by what looks a bit like a dump, not really knowing exactly where they are. There's nothing to give away here. The two guys make the trip. They make it with Lucy, Mark's dog, up to the hot spring the next afternoon. And the rustic shelter set up there for bathing is as Kurt had promised, simple and lovely. Kurt has said there's not much difference between city and country now but this peaceful place belies that notion, except that when they return, their parting is quick, and Kurt is soon out and about by himself in a sleazy part of town and Mark is heading home with an Air America political talk show tuned in again just as it was when he headed out to get Kurt.

The irony is that all this meticulous observation reveals very little. When it's over, we don't know much about who these two men are. We don't know how they knew each other when younger or for how long; We don't know what Mark's job is. And it is not clear that they find each other boring, because they haven't said a lot to each other. Mark has talked a little about his father, and Kurt has told a long story at the hot spring about shopping for a notebook and a dream he just had that provides the title. In his dream a woman told Kurt that "sorrow is nothing but worn-out joy." Is the joy of Mark and Kurt's old friendship worn out and turned to sorrow? NYTimes critic Manohla Dargis, who wrote this week that this is "one of the finest American films of the year," says that at their parting, "from the way Kurt looks at Mark, it seems clear he knows there won't be another reunion." Seems, perhaps; but it isn't really clear. And this is the weakness of Reichart's understated method: it's so subtle, and in its construction so minimal, it risks not really saying anything. Nature and the urban world speak clearly in Reichart's film, but there's a substratum of feeling and experience that finds no voice.

Shown at various film festivals, including San Francisco, and released in Portland, Oregon in August and New York City (Film Forum) in September 2006.

Yes there are some spoken lines in Kelly Reichardt's 'Old Joy', but in reality, the film is about the silences that ornament so much of the film's running time. It is about what's not said by the characters instead of what's actually said. This is a very poignant depiction of two old friends with very different present lives and who have gradually strayed away from each other over time, coming together one last time to silently celebrate and bid farewell to past memories. The film very sensitively portrays the transition that a man has to go through at a specific stage in life. Being a man in my 20s, this film hit me hard as there is a very noticeable sense of suppressed melancholy that permeates almost every shot which I can completely relate with. The fact that this was made by a woman further underlines why the gender of the artist doesn't matter as long as he/she has a deep understanding of the human condition. Big Recommendation.

Two friends in their early thirties meet to renew their previous friendship on a camping trip in the gorgeous Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Kurt (Will Oldham) is a balding free spirit, while Mark (Daniel London) is a working man who is about to take on the responsibility of being a father. Both men seek to recreate the magic that once brought them together but their connection is now so tenuous and their worlds so divided that it seems as if there is no longer anything to hold onto, even memory.

Kelly Reichardt's superb Old Joy is a film of rare beauty unburdened by typical male-bonding clichés, more the "big chill out" than The Big Chill. While it is the story of male friendship, it is not about plot or even character but a film of mood and atmosphere that tells its story with gestures, expressions, and silences punctuated by the ambient sounds of nature. On their drive through pristine countryside to the music of Yo La Tengo, Mark listens to Air America talk radio bemoaning the state of the Democratic Party and talks about how his father decided to leave his mother when he turned seventy but nothing is said about what the two shared together in the past.

When Kurt fails to find the turnoff to the Bagby Hot Springs near Oregon's Mount Hood, the two (three if you include the dog) spend the night at an abandoned campsite, prompting Kurt to remark that "there are trees in the city, and garbage in the forest, so what is the difference?" At the campsite, Kurt relates his experiences of recent trips to Big Sur and Ashland which he calls "transcendent" and "life-changing" and about how he took a course in physics but knew more than the professor and volunteers his theory that the universe is enclosed in a tear that is falling and has been for millennia, but Mark seems to hardly notice.

He only perks up when he receives phone calls on his cell from his pregnant wife (Tanya Smith) who had only given grudging consent to the trip, sensing that the pot smoking Kurt was not a good influence. The next day they reach the springs and enjoy a moment of peace in the hot tub but it is interrupted by Kurt's telling Mark how much he misses him and how something is wrong with their relationship which Mark denies but the sense is that something has been lost forever.

Nothing really happens in Old Joy. There are almost no peak dramatic moments but almost every scene has subtle undertones of meaning. A sense of loss permeates the film, the loss perhaps of a time when people were connected and fighting for a cause meant human involvement rather than the distancing of today's radio talk shows or anonymous Internet message boards. When the aging hippie shares a Chinese proverb that "Sorrow is nothing but worn out joy", it feels as if the film becomes a metaphor for the joy that seems to be wearing out in an age approaching its zero point.

Such a quiet little film, short at just 73 minutes, understated in its direction, and without any grand revelations or events in its plot. The scenery of Oregon that we see from the car and then in the forest is beautiful and evocative, really making me want to get back up there and do some hiking, which made seeing this worth it all on its own. I probably would have liked just a teeny bit more from the script, but the restraint is intentional, and with the barest of brush strokes Kelly Reichardt paints this picture of two friends slowly drifting apart in life that was sad and stirring. One has a wife and is soon to be a father, and the other is nice enough but hasn't gotten on track, smoking a lot of pot and getting the two of them lost. The first guy assures the second that they're still solid friends, but the latter feels him moving on, in part because of his own struggles, and goes so far as to give him an awkward back rub at the hot springs as if to force a level of intimacy that the two don't really have anymore. On the way back there are few words, just passing images out the window at night that fit the melancholy of the film perfectly, and I got the sense that despite what they say about calling one another, it may be years before they ever see each other again, if ever. Moving on in life is sometimes inevitable, but there's an extra sense of sadness here because one of the two is a bit lost, a situation which really hit home for me personally because of a friend I once knew (a guy who never made it past being lost). Reichardt puts in a few other nice touches in the talk radio clips we hear, reflecting issues in American politics and life still relevant today. Really, just a lovely little film, and a near miss for a higher rating.

When was the last time you relaxed at a movie? That's not the same as saying you relaxed WITH a movie, but that the movie itself relaxed you. A simple and subtle difference in tune with this simple and subtle film where the small touches and gentle silences speak more than any plotting or dialog.

OLD JOY is a true anomaly in today's market. During the heyday of the Studio era, it wasn't unusual to see films that were as short as OLD JOY's 76 minutes, in fact, they were often shorter. Today, only a few animated films and truncated/butchered films are ever this short.

In a way, all of the effusive praise the film has gotten can be counter-productive in that expectations are elevated, and audiences may expect something more heavily plotted or profound. Based on a short story, this is a sort of short feature. In literature, the short form has its own limitations and virtues that they don't necessarily share with novels. Film is more tangible, and OLD JOY can be experienced as a slice of life - a moment in time (here for a couple of friends). We are simply asked to observe and (hopefully) reflect on the road trip we witness.

The length of the film is only the most obvious and measurable way in which OLD JOY separates it from the stream of American film, but, it is the natural grace and will to not strain for effect that truly marks it as different. Just sit back and relax.

I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if you could somehow "force" an audience who think they are about to see JACKASS or the latest Slasher film to watch OLD JOY instead (hopefully, not having to resort to CLOCKWORK ORANGE type tactics!).