However, his condition prevents him from throwing a punch and he is then overpowered and left lying in the rain. The only saving grace is the short ninety minute running time. Mitchell's killer later approaches Sam at the motel and introduces himself as Elwood. Read Less. an affair with motel owner Sam and shes not devastated by her loss. The score of the film is great creates the perfect atmosphere, the performances of all the actors individually are very good and it's a very good but very short slow burn. But in this film, the consequences are very negative. Directed by Jamie M. Dagg. Later that night, on the way home from Bernadette's house, Lila is followed by Elwood but is able to evade him. Jon Bernthal Christopher Abbott Imogen Poots Rosemarie DeWitt Odessa Young Jonathan Tucker Joseph Lyle Taylor Garry Chalk Jared Abrahamson Gabrielle Rose Mike Dopud Darcy Laurie Scott A. McGillivray Thers Amee Victoria Bidewell Kathryn Kirkpatrick Shawn Orr Cameron Hilts Rick Pearce Linda Jones, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones Aram Tertzakian Nate Bolotin Chris Ferguson Giuliana Bertuzzi Rian Cahill Fernando Loureiro Roberto Vasconcellos Jesse Savath, Automatik Entertainment XYZ Films Oddfellows Entertainment Exhibit Entertainment, Thrillers and murder mysteries Crime, drugs and gangsters Westerns There were 12 other movies released on the same date, including The Star, Wonder and Zack Snyder's Justice League. railroad crossing, the gates come down and a train impedes her progress. "Sweet Virginia" premiered in the Spotlight Narrative section of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. All that said, the movie is well put together, enough so that if youre not entirely tired of its clichs, it might constitute a tolerable entertainment. The police go through Elwood's belongings and find Lila's name and phone number. Starring Jane Seymour. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2017. murder. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. This movie sure was well worth my time. Some of the films best moments of dread are conversations much too tense for normal folk, but otherwise perfect for a world in which everyone has a motive and everything is connected. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Christmas Under Wraps and 12 Gifts of Christmas were also filmed in different parts of Utah, including Provo. Thus small town stories tend to be based on romanticized memories (be it good or bad) from the point of city slickers. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here. The villian is really the one you least expect and sympathy is garnered for the obvious ones. Pros: Klassisches Sonntags-Couchkino. Hold on to that and dont act too crazy. Lots of detail. In the rearview mirror, we see the Everything is well done in this film. and the seeking out. Score was so good as to I couldnt say if it had one. 22 August 2016 - 17 September 2016. Sweet Virginia is a tense small town noir. The specific setting of Alaska isnt relevant (in fact, the movie was filmed to Hes more or less passing through, but checks into the motel and strikes up a weird friendship with Sam. After a phone call with his mother, Elwood becomes enraged and instigates a fight with two men. Watched it again the following day. He subdues and nearly shoots Bernadette when he notices Sam's hat on the counter. The series' excellence and futuristic approach didn't end in its casting and storyline. Smart and well-acted, Sweet Virginia delivers a tense, atmospheric thriller that transcends genre conventions even as it embraces them. But the worst is the ending. And the women who hire them. I can think of three straight away. Just confirm how you got your ticket. Much of the movies potency comes from the way it withholds certain information until just the right moment, and how the combination of several seemingly contradictory brushstrokes can render a character we perceived one way in a completely new light although light is by far the scarcest resource on offer here. Theres loss in every prop decorating his home and work, as opposed to the blank living quarters of the hitman. But for all her calculations, she hadnt foreseen that others would be hurt in the process. Oddness extends to the films camerawork: Excruciating long takes follow doubtful, fearful drives home as carefully as disturbingly emotionless motel room sex. I only new a couple. thing surprising about Elwood is that hes accepting money for something he Wer einen dieser oder genau solche Filme mag, sollte auch dieses Kleinstadt-Thriller-Drama in Ordnung finden. They won't be able to see your review if you only submit your rating. The movie opens with a brutal prologue featuring a triple husband. Like any good noir, all comes down to desire and absurd nihilism. It's a simple and contained film, but worth watching if you are a fan of either actor or slow-burn thrillers. The bartender says, "We're closed." This could be a romantic setting, if the two characters werent such icy sociopaths. Just below that it reads "Ticket Confirmation#:" followed by a 10-digit number. "Rock 'N' Roll Hotel" originally was filmed in state-of-the-art 3-D. I was impressed with Jon Bernthal's blunt emotional performance as well as Christopher Abbot's take on playing a psychopath with a conscience. Now shes all kinds of desperate, worse off than before, and willing to jeopardize others safety to save herself including that of a local friend (Rosemarie DeWitt) also left widowed by the shooting with secrets of her own to keep. I won't bother reading them. Hes a damaged-goods drifter catering to other drifters, running in place from some heartbreak he cant quite forget. Blood Simple. 'Sweet Virginia' Sets A Gripping Noir In Remotest Alaska Keith Phipps November 14, 2017 There's not a lot of joy at the Sweet Virginia motel. Please try again. Given its far-north location, Alaska is known for having extraordinarily long nights at certain times of year, and yet, that isn't the case here. A big pile of nothingness. And it takes place in Alaska (though filmed in British Columbia), where we open with a triple homicide in a small. The China Brothers pay close attention to detail and focus in on unexpected, interesting camera angles throughout the film. Right out of the gate, the China brothers noir-hearted sensibility was being compared to that of fellow film siblings Joel and Ethan Coen, as critics hailed the Australian writer-director duos debut Crawl as a modern-day Blood Simple. On the surface, their 2012 Black List-selected screenplay for Sweet Virginia dives further down that rabbit hole, featuring as it does a wife who hires a guy to bump off her own husband (a gender-flipped twist on the basic Fargo plot) and a hit man whos as cold-blooded as No Country for Old Men killer Anton Chigurh. The film stars , , in the pivotal roles. Elwood. Out of the Furnace. The bank now owns her home and there is no money. He starts his morning at the motel by reading about the shootings in the paper and then responding to a disturbance in room 128. Played out in an unidentified locale (although the titular motel scenes were shot in Hope, British Columbia), Sweet Virginia is set in an undefined earlier time frame than the present, one where simple folks never locked their doors, even with a killer lurking in their midst. 7/10 by me. with updates on movies, TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes podcast and more. Sam has trouble lifting his right arm and walks with a limp due to injuries suffered from bull riding. We all act crazy, I guess. She stabs and kills Paul and is chased by Elwood. Don't listen to the bad reviews. She is arrested and the final shot is of Bernadette cutting Sam's hair while he thinks about his riding accident. With his dead eyes and awkward mannerisms, the only Guns N' Roses, Stevie Nicks, Janet Jackson and Wizkid are on sale now. really boring and useless. I might be blinded by my love for Christopher Abbott and Jon Bernthal, but I thought Sweet Virginia was a great thriller. One rejection suggested that Nabokov recast the novels action in short, strong, realistic sentences; Nabokovs imagined examples still stand as hilarious, sterling examples of what I like to call cornpone clich: He acts crazy. . At one ', Donnie Yen Called Out John Wick 4 and Rogue One Asian Stereotypes, Got Scripts Changed: Why Is the Name Always Shang or Chang, The True Story Behind 'Cocaine Bear': A 175-Pound Beast, a Dead Drug Smuggler in Gucci Loafers and More, Michael B. Jordan Meets Reporter at 'Creed III' Premiere Who 'Teased Him all the Time' in High School: 'I Was the Corny Kid, Right? A guy walks into a bar. A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence. Elwood says his father died in a prison riot in 1996 and shows a strong disdain for him. Satisfied, he leaves and meets with Paul to enlist his services to do a job to which Paul agrees. It oozes it from every frame. We know what were supposed to be feelingand so we wait, armrests gripped tight. We wont be able to verify your ticket today, but its great to know for the future. A murderer-for-hire stews at a motel while he awaits payment for a job. Bernthal dials things down to play Sam who, despite an impressive physique, has Their filming locations were top-notch. Case in Sweet Virginia would clearly like to stake out some territory on the dark dramatic edges of the cinematic map, but ends up a little lost. In his 1956 essay On A Book Entitled Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov recounts both the imaginative origins of his groundbreaking novel and the difficulty he had finding a publisher for it in the United States. A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence.A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence.A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence. room at the motel and befriends Sam, whom he recognizes from his rodeo days. I can usually stick with crime stories that have a sense of humor. A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence. Imogen Poots and Rosemarie DeWitt play widows of those murdered by Elwood, both seeking comfort, and the mysterious ways theyre tied into the plot speak depths about levels of emotional desperation in a small town and the mistakes and panic it can bring. Report this film, Jon Bernthal: I'm not sure about this scriptJon Bernthal's agent: ok but what if I get them to write in a scene with you staring angrily into a mirror covered in bloo -Jon Bernthal: I'LL TAKE IT. They discuss whether Tom is in heaven or hell and Sam seems regretful of his relationship with Bernadette. There needs to be more films with this depth and uncertainty, playing out like a Coen Bros classic but being its own is no easy feat. They set up the characters really well. Even by day, the shadows seem to have shadows, as Canadian cinematographer Jessica Gagn creates a world of such murky moral contradictions, you have to squint at times to make out the shape-shifting personalities that lurk within. So. Truly a work of art. Dster, ruhig und intensivierend erzhlt, elegant gefilmt und gut besetzt. From James White to Katie Says Goodbye, the Greenwich, CT native seems exclusively drawn to characters who could punch a wall at any moment you cant take your eyes off the guy, but its hard to shake the feeling that he picks his roles by imagining what might happen if Marlon Brandos Stanley Kowalski walked off the screen and started wandering through the modern indie landscape. He asks about his payment, and Lila tells him she will have it by the end of the week after she meets with Mitchell's lawyer. Sweet Virginia is an uncommonly dark movie. It thrives like unmowed kudzu in the dialogue of this aspiring noir written by brothers Paul and Benjamin China and directed by Jamie M. Dagg. overstaying its welcome (especially one the relies not on action but on mood). As Elwood decides that its cleaner to remove witnesses, so he kills the A former rodeo champ befriends a young man with a propensity for violence. U-Turn. Sweet Virginia can't find itself on the cinematic map, John Ivison: Whether the Liberals winked at Chinas helpful election meddling is the lingering question, Trudeau was regularly briefed on foreign interference in elections, national security adviser says, Michael Higgins: 'A lot of reason to be afraid,' says censured teacher critical of the woke revolution in classrooms, Three arrested after activists deface mammoth at Royal B.C. At the motel the manager was having an affair with one of the victims. Sweet Virginia is a 2017 neo-noir thriller film directed by Jamie M. Dagg, written by Benjamin China and Paul China, and starring Jon Bernthal, Christopher Abbott, Imogen Poots, Rosemarie DeWitt, Odessa Young and Jared Abrahamson. It may be predictable, but it sure isn't boring. While nothing special plot-wise, theres a ton of potential on display, as every shot is meticulously constructed, the dreary lighting sucking us into this story of lonely, soon to be dead hearts. point: a scene in which Lila is driving across town when she suspects shes Please consider upgrading to a Pro accountfor less than a couple bucks a month, youll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages (example), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads! Coming Soon. jon bernthals nose. By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and A little back-story here: at the time of this conversation, nice guy Sam doesnt yet know that Elwood (no really) is a contract killer. Elwood, Christopher Abbott (whose credits include indie movies and TV work) Only criticism for my ears was a lot of the communication was low key,and I had to turn it up a fair bit. And it takes place in Alaska (though filmed in British Columbia), where we open with a triple homicide in a small town diner. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. 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