David Gordon Green has a supremely talented cinematic eye. In his gorgeous, lyrical images of North Carolina towns, he captures the slightly decrepit beauty of Southern landscapes, industrialized for a century, now depressed and feeling the subtle return of rural rhythms. His ear for dialogue is celebrated as well. Characters in his acclaimed debut George Washington and his second effort All the Real Girls speak in a backcountry version of Tarantino’s ephemeral topic selection and Whit Stillman’s frustrated soul-baring.
So why is All the Real Girls, which opens soon at Green Hills, such a heartbreaking, infuriating experience? Green’s talents—as significant as any to arrive on the movie scene in 20 years—soar above his blind spots and painful wrong turns. But those flaws are too blatant to be forgiven. The movie seduces you with a pure, original vision and then pushes you away with inexplicable bad choices.
Maybe it’s no accident that the movie is about finding pure love and learning that it’s tainted with reality. Paul Schneider plays Paul, a local Don Juan who falls for waifish, virginal Noel (played by Zooey Deschanel), sister of his childhood friend Tip. The two embark on a passionate but platonic affair, until Paul learns that Noel may not be the paragon he had thought. Meanwhile, his mom (Patricia Clarkson) tries to help Paul acquire some responsibility and ambition.
As with George Washington, the subsidiary characters usually feel more solidly drawn than the protagonists. A nerdish hanger-on named Bust-Ass (Danny McBride) never takes a wrong step: His dialogue is always real, grounded and amusing, and he gets in on most of the best scenes. When Green is working with his supporting players, he can make even intimate revelations, that conventional stuff of movie drama, naturalistic; a scene where tough-guy Tip opens his heart to Paul is achingly, appealingly real.
By contrast, Paul and Noel only rarely engage in the easy, spontaneous dialogue that roots so many of Green’s scenes in organic, available experience. They talk in stilted, dramatic, halting half-symbols, because this is how the writer-director has chosen to advance the plot. But the result is that the main characters are boxed into an artificial framework of story and character that feels nothing like the quiet, observational tone of Green’s best moments. Consequently, some of the biggest scenes come across as movie-ish, unbelievable, aggressive and off-putting.
As Green’s astounding eye for image, rhythm and place develops, the comparison to Terrence Malick grows more apt. Like the director of Badlands and The Thin Red Line, Green sees patterns and elusive meaning in complex natural forms—clouds, smoke, reflections, tall grass—and strings them together in montages of transporting power. But unlike Malick, who always makes you feel that you are following the characters where they happen to be going, Green leads his characters into traps and lessons and contrivances of his own god-like making. Until he learns to wed his creative power to a narrative style worthy of it, he’ll continue to inspire the kind of anger that only the most fervent love and admiration can spawn.
—Donna Bowman
