Master Gardener (Paul Schrader, 2022)

[Finch]

Schrader is already preparing his next film The Master Gardener, with Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton, filming next year in the South.

[therewillbeblus]

Schrader is already preparing his next film The Master Gardener, with Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton, filming next year in the South.

Production has wrapped, per Schrader on social media

[Never Cursed]

How excellent it is to find your trust in the rigidity of a director’s oft-repeated approach to diverse subjects rewarded in a work of total focus and conviction. Master Gardener may be the best man-mask-room-mission movie of Schrader’s late career, locating the natural climax and end point to Schrader’s impromptu trilogy of such films in a scathingly critical look at the strained last gasps of reactionary Southern traditionalism. Schrader cautioned the audience before my screening to view the story as more of a fable or a Gothic narrative than as a sketch of something that could potentially occur. That might appear to put it at odds with the immediacy of the post-climate change and 9/11 mentalities Schrader captured in his previous works, but his willingness to step further into the allegorical in this film lets him more directly ask the question of which path the remnants of this political current will take.

The other reason I assume that Master Gardener is the last of these types of movies that Schrader will make is that its protagonist Narvel Roth (a fearless Joel Edgerton, showcasing a physical awareness and emotional subtlety that I had no idea he even had) occupies the final point in the sinners’ narrative arc that Schrader has taken so much effort to trace. If First Reformed is about a pained person undergoing a crisis of faith and The Card Counter is about a faithless person looking for punishment, this is the story of a punished person finding the opportunity for redemption thrust upon him. The austere and oppressive built environments of the previous two films are largely absent here, replaced by a cultivated natural world rich in real and metaphorical possibilities for change and regrowth. (There’s a moment early on when Roth brings some loam to his face, inhales deeply, and monologues, nose and mouth covered in dirt, about the unique constructive power that this soil has, and the hope-against-hope he feels is palpable and deeply moving).

I’m not interested in spoiling anything (especially since, as of this writing, distributors have run screaming from this film once they’ve seen what it’s about), but suffice it to say that Roth hides the type of malign secret that might make it genuinely difficult for a viewer to grant him the possibility for hope afforded to him by the film. Sigourney Weaver’s character, representative of the traditional conservative world marching with uncomfortable knowledge towards its demise, is content to keep him in a static occupational limbo, but the incursion of a good person who needs help into Roth’s life forces him to put down the obligatory passive-reflective journal and ask himself what kind of self-transformation he can commit to. The film has a few artistic connections to Euphoria of all things (present in some of what happens to its characters down the road as well as in how Quintessa Swindell, who played a sort of reflection of Zendaya’s character in one episode, replaced Zendaya in a role written for her) but I think the most significant linkage is that it shares the show’s boundless optimism for the power of that same personal reconstruction over guilt and past action. The living world comes alive again for Roth after he takes the plunge, expressed best in a phantasmagoria scene of vibrant visual effects and a beautiful closing shot that demonstrates that Schrader doesn’t need to imitate Bresson to give his films all-timer endings. I hope this troubled, serene, microscopic, broad-reaching movie quickly makes its way from film-festival limbo and into the awards-circuit recognition where it belongs.

When asked about the ideas he had for his next project, Schrader offered a hazy but telling picture: “I hate tetralogies… so now, I’m trying to write about this character again, but (I’ve realized), I have to step aside, so it’s time to make him a her…a trauma nurse in Puerto Rico. That’s the occupation.”

[therewillbeblus]

Master Gardener may be the best man-mask-room-mission movie of Schrader’s late career

I’m not interested in spoiling anything (especially since, as of this writing, distributors have run screaming from this film once they’ve seen what it’s about)

Master Gardener has finally found a willing distributor in Magnolia Pictures

[DarkImbecile]

Trailer

[therewillbeblus]

How excellent it is to find your trust in the rigidity of a director’s oft-repeated approach to diverse subjects rewarded in a work of total focus and conviction. Master Gardener may be the best man-mask-room-mission movie of Schrader’s late career, locating the natural climax and end point to Schrader’s impromptu trilogy of such films in a scathingly critical look at the strained last gasps of reactionary Southern traditionalism. Schrader cautioned the audience before my screening to view the story as more of a fable or a Gothic narrative than as a sketch of something that could potentially occur. That might appear to put it at odds with the immediacy of the post-climate change and 9/11 mentalities Schrader captured in his previous works, but his willingness to step further into the allegorical in this film lets him more directly ask the question of which path the remnants of this political current will take.

The other reason I assume that Master Gardener is the last of these types of movies that Schrader will make is that its protagonist Narvel Roth (a fearless Joel Edgerton, showcasing a physical awareness and emotional subtlety that I had no idea he even had) occupies the final point in the sinners’ narrative arc that Schrader has taken so much effort to trace. If First Reformed is about a pained person undergoing a crisis of faith and The Card Counter is about a faithless person looking for punishment, this is the story of a punished person finding the opportunity for redemption thrust upon him. The austere and oppressive built environments of the previous two films are largely absent here, replaced by a cultivated natural world rich in real and metaphorical possibilities for change and regrowth. (There’s a moment early on when Roth brings some loam to his face, inhales deeply, and monologues, nose and mouth covered in dirt, about the unique constructive power that this soil has, and the hope-against-hope he feels is palpable and deeply moving).

I’m not interested in spoiling anything (especially since, as of this writing, distributors have run screaming from this film once they’ve seen what it’s about), but suffice it to say that Roth hides the type of malign secret that might make it genuinely difficult for a viewer to grant him the possibility for hope afforded to him by the film. Sigourney Weaver’s character, representative of the traditional conservative world marching with uncomfortable knowledge towards its demise, is content to keep him in a static occupational limbo, but the incursion of a good person who needs help into Roth’s life forces him to put down the obligatory passive-reflective journal and ask himself what kind of self-transformation he can commit to. The film has a few artistic connections to Euphoria of all things (present in some of what happens to its characters down the road as well as in how Quintessa Swindell, who played a sort of reflection of Zendaya’s character in one episode, replaced Zendaya in a role written for her) but I think the most significant linkage is that it shares the show’s boundless optimism for the power of that same personal reconstruction over guilt and past action. The living world comes alive again for Roth after he takes the plunge, expressed best in a phantasmagoria scene of vibrant visual effects and a beautiful closing shot that demonstrates that Schrader doesn’t need to imitate Bresson to give his films all-timer endings. I hope this troubled, serene, microscopic, broad-reaching movie quickly makes its way from film-festival limbo and into the awards-circuit recognition where it belongs.

This is such a wonderful, generous, and spot-on writeup, that I can only support with brief impressions, most best left hidden. I will say that all three people I saw this with tonight hated it- they complained about poor dialogue, odd deliveries from the actors, and structural irritations (which I'll place in the spoilerbox), but not only do I disagree with these assertions on a base level, I think this film works best if you're familiar with Schrader's work, and particularly if viewed as the endpoint to a trilogy (or even a career-expanding study, since the very first iteration of this Bresson-modeling in form and characterization ignited Schrader's career). I'm not sure how the film would function independently -which is not to say that it's not valuable with its insights on rehabilitation et al. in a vacuum; I just can't know that because my experience disallows ignoring those conditions -but it's unquestionably richer with context.

Spoiler

Most of these frustrations were aimed at subverting a few expectations - a) to fill in a detailed past, that's heavily elided compared to the last two Schraders, and b) that it's too 'neat', with everything working out without much conflict, where Edgerton issues a fair amount of control to tidy and composed results. I can understand the complaints, but this is where context is key. Schrader has evolved throughout his career, starting with a dysregulated 20something loser on the verge of homicide or suicide to a place as close to tranquility as possible, with hope that perhaps life can be at peace. The form emulated all these past works, but the differences are subtle yet omnipresent in its ethos. There’s very little focus on the past, obviously so - the elisions are almost in your face- because the attention is firmly planted (sorry) on the present. After the last two in the unofficial trilogy, it's nice to see one that ends with a purified win - the Christian cleansing that does not necessitate self-destruction to arrive at personal catharses.

Schrader's characters have been in crisis over various preoccupations for decades, consumed with present and past traumas, only to arrive at an optimistic philosophy in acceptance and evolution and rehabilitation and that imposed order can work. That's not to say that Edgerton's life is hunky dory - he still lives with the loss of his family, asks about his daughter, and is powerless to remedy his situation or come to terms with that loss. But he can pivot, accept the situation and peripherally access infinite possibility in the sublime from there. Acceptance is the key theme here, coupled with tactful, intentional action - a confidence Edgerton exudes that yields profitable returns. Weaver invites him back because he accepted her decision without expectations, showed up, did the right thing, and earned his way back. That could have not happened, and he would have been okay, but this film believes in the philosophy that if you live your life with love and compassion and intentionality, things will work out as best they can. It's significant that Edgerton's traumatic nightmares and mini-flashbacks of regret are barely featured in contrast to the wealth of temporal energy granted to banal yet meaningful current interactions, from gardening to passive but impactful caring gestures. It's not that Edgerton isn't suffering, but he's working hard to transform these sufferings into a new man, and most importantly, succeeding at that.

And that's where Edgerton's control comes into play. This film beautifully demonstrates how demeanor (tone, expression) can control situations better than we think. Edgerton was able to issue bare minimum force to make a point - implementing precise, calculated, unemotional intervention to produce a favorable result. I expected this to go way further but the practice of 'momentary escalation followed by skillful de-escalation' works, especially as a different answer to The Card Counter's ultimate surrender to fatalistic violence, which informs a lot of this film’s more optimistic comprehension of rehabilitation and opportunities to challenge fatalistic trappings in hindsight.

A case could be made that one should not need to contextualize a film against a series of technically-unrelated material, but I think that context was vital in unanchoring the burdensome antiheroes to release the power of this film and allow a born-again hero to emerge as simultaneously sewn to and divorced from his past.

One of the best films about rehabilitation I've ever seen - this feels like Schrader's swan song, and I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of his work plays like some kind of epilogue in the wake of the quiet profundity of this reflexively-controlled opus, dedicated to the serene potential we have been conditioned not to see, welcome, or accept. But Schrader knows it's there and stages the work like a pacifist protest to make us witness and ingest it, and sit with our own resistances through its unassertive approach.

[Persona]

As a big Schrader fan who considers First Reformed his favorite film of the past decade and also loved The Card Counter, I am really heartened to see these reactions here for Master Gardener after reading the more mixed/muted reviews coming out of the festivals. Dying for the movie to come out somewhere remotely near me.

That piece on Schrader in the The New Yorker that came out yesterday ("Paul Schrader Wants to Make Another Movie") was so thorough and good, it had me a bit emotional. I really hope Paul gets to make another film (or two or three!) while he can and I hope that the Elisabeth Moss project goes forward.

[Matt]

Excellent, very effective film. I think my favorite of the recent “trilogy.” Apart from the journal writing with voiceover (a feature of all three), it seems the least beholden to cribbing from Bresson’s film while incorporating more of his style of the direction of actors. (And that’s not a negative criticism. I’m happy people are still making Bresson-influenced films, and Schrader is the best at it.)

Joel Edgerton is always so good at these muted, physically and emotionally restrained performances (as in Loving) and he is note-perfect here. Sigourney Weaver is also so good in this, hovering at the edge of camp but tastefully never crossing the line. I once worked for a very similarly grand and mannered Southern woman.

Spoiler

I was dreading the inevitable VFX scene (the one in ruined the film for me), but Edgerton finally cutting loose in the driving scene with the blooming flowers unexpectedly made me well up. Such a moment of grace and release which beautifully sets up the concluding events.

[Persona]

Probably my least favorite of the late style trilogy as I felt the narrative and character gaps the most in this one, but I still really liked this. Has some great moments (each of the trilogy has a surreal scene of grace towards the end of their 2nd acts, and Master Gardener's is the best) and maybe the best supporting performances and musical score (by Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange) of the trilogy.

I thought Edgerton was very good but his character just didn't feel as completely conceived and realized as Isaac's and Hawke's. And all three films have rich thematic interplay, but I think it was more incisive and impactful in First Reformed and The Card Counter.

[Soy Cuba]

I wasn't too fussed on this film. I think it's about time Paul Schrader moved past his same old plotline of isolated man with former violent past keeps a diary (Country Priestesque like) and then gets involved in violence again through a series of misfortunate events. It worked well in Taxi Driver and to a lesser extent First Reformed. But it's getting old.

I get that this is part of an unofficial trilogy with First Reformed and the Card Counter, but it's working less and less with each effort. The flashback scenes are unconvincing, Sigourney Weaver's character is overwritten and yet her arc creeps up very quickly with little backstory. Some characters develop too fast and just feel unnatural. Joel Edgerton carries the film and yet it's still a relatively poor one. Time for Schrader to move on.