After the Denim

After the Denim is a wonderful short that should resonate with any generation that had to deal with a generation gap. The acting is superb and subtle. I personally am not overly familiar with Raymond Carver's work, but the script allowed me to understand and sympathize with the old man of this piece.

The story deals with a retired man who is set in his ways. When he and his wife encounter young strangers at their weekly bingo game, it serves as the catalyst for him to be either compassionate or judgmental. The situations set up in the film give him the opportunity to be both.

This is a classy adaptation from writer/director Gregory Goyins, and co-director Scott Rosenfelt. Tom Bower and Karen Landry share a perfect chemistry as the older couple. And Jeff Newburg and Ceren Alkac play the young couple with a reckless abandon that reflects a perfect opposition to the older couple's settled ways.

Bottom line, I really enjoyed this film.

AFTER I watched this film I sat around for maybe half hour. I wasn't really doing any mental gymnastics, more of just basking in the glow of a damn good piece of short cinema. I cannot recommend this film enough. Tom Bower absolutely kills it in this film. So happy to see him take the lead and deliver such a mammoth of a performance. As a Carver fan, I can say this piece handles the troubled author with enough respect and clarity that the themes from the short story are conveyed perfectly. The filmmakers obviously had love for Carver as well as almost each scene is retained with perfect delivery. And where else can you get a poignant drama about Bingo, the most sinister boardgame of them all. Where I ask you!?

Seek out this film. Well worth it for Carver and film lovers alike.

"After the Denim" translates Raymond Carver's short story of the same title to film with an admirable appreciation of Carver's small-town characters. The art direction is exquisite -- the apartment, the clothes, the close-ups, especially having Edith wear a girlish hair style (graying) and James in conservative clothes.

At the same time, the film goes beyond merely translating Carver's story; it brings in some resonances from Carver's longer (original, unedited by Gordon Lish) version of the story called "If It Please You" and updates the "hippies" of Carver's day to Gen X (or Y?) kids who drive an old Cadillac and look at James Packer with insouciance his obsessive, suspicious behavior deserves.

Read the stories in the Library of America edition, then see the film.

After The Denim, based on the short story by Raymond Carver, a new film co-directed and adapted for the screen by Gregory Goyins marks the screenwriter's directorial debut. Impressive from start to finish, After The Denim suggests the start of a very promising new film-making career in the works.

Ill at ease, James Packer finds his normal state of discomfiture further aroused when, arriving late for bingo, he and his wife's seats are occupied by a young couple, one that may or may not have been themselves decades earlier. James' bitterness is apparent immediately upon seeing them. This sets up a dramatic standoff, which is carried out with brilliance, as James confronts them for what he perceives to be cheating. The pettiness of the (imagined) offense is exponentially magnified in James' uneasy world, where the loss of his own son (years earlier), and the imminence of his own decline factor strongly in the dark prism of his imagination.

Goyins takes a big risk here. As James and Edith Packer approach the bingo hall, I found myself asking, where can this go? And indeed, without the strength of impeccable direction and timing, the bingo-hall showdown could have foundered in a mire of banality. Casting, acting and film editing all factor to magnify the intensity of the moment, lending a sinister aspect to an otherwise ordinary young man and his date. The encounter between Packer and the young couple, wholly successful, takes us deeper into James Packers' fragile psyche.

As the Packers approach the bingo hall, James declares, 'I don't feel lucky tonight'. These words, finally, will be prophetic when, upon returning home, the specter of imminent tragedy is unveiled. James Packers' imagination races back to the youth and freedom of the couple at the bingo hall; his bitterness now displaced on them. If only...

After the Denim is a study on loss, age and the toxic effects of envy. Still, James Packer arouses our sympathy in spite of his failings, and in this there is much to be admired - and in doing so locates the part of elder agoniste appropriately into a length panoply of such characters - who's struggle is to remain meaningful in an age where one's relevance is marginal at best. We are reminded of Laertes, Odysseus' father, who, awaiting his sons' return from foreign adventure erodes the slow erosion of self that accompanies the loss of his son. There would be no harvest of vigor in the person of his child.

A short film, with finely tuned performances distills with maximum economy the breadth of the characters' experience, delivering completely on the strength of Carver's short story.

"After The Denim" is a beautiful film drawing us into the lives of an aging couple, James and Edith Packer, beautifully portrayed by Tom Bower, and Karen Landry. Raymond Carver's work prodigiously adapted by Gregory Goyins, writer and directorial debut, makes us feel the character, James Packers' conflict. Looking back at one's life and asking the poignant question, when did I grow old? Was my life meaningful? Did I love well? We feel the choices he faces, feeling his bitterness and pain, or numbing them with alcohol. I loved the young couple at the Bingo hall portrayed by Jeff Newburg and Ceren Alkac; they WERE the Packer's when they were that age. This film juxtaposes young and old, and the inevitability of aging that we all must face. In an age where film making is about multimillion budgets and special effects, this film tells a real story that we all can relate to, real life, and shows us that great film making does not require big bucks for a great story to be told. Beautifully acted, directed, and shot. A must see.