Once upon a time, David Gordon Green was known as a maker of moody, bleak indie films that took place in authentic, working class worlds full of local color. People liked that. Then he took a detour into the world of mainstream comedies, making raunchy stoner fare like Your Highness and The Sitter. People didn’t like that so much. Last year he took Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch out into the woods and made a smaller movie with them called Prince Avalanche though, and a lot of pundits called it a return to form for the filmmaker, even though it was a bit more ambiguous than it was bleak, and a bit more absurdist than it was moody. With his latest effort, Joe, there’s no question that Green has moved back toward the same sort of material that made him famous, however. This small town tale stands right next to things like All the Real Girls and Snow Angels when it comes to spotlighting local color, mood-building, and telling a story that will leave you slumped over and feeling like the world is just an awful, terrible place to be. So chances are you’re going to like it.
The story told here isn’t really all that involved, seeing as Joe is much more interested in being a slice of life and a character study than it is in developing a complex plot, but the general setup is that Tye Sheridan is playing a teenager named Gary who comes from a family led by an alcoholic, vagabond patriarch who would rob you blind just as soon as he’d share a joke with you, even if you’re his own son, and Nicolas Cage is playing a character named Joe, who gives Gary his first job and becomes something of a mentor to him. Joe is responsible enough to run his own business and to employ a crew of workers, and he’s enough of a standup guy to look everyone in the eye and treat them fairly, but he also seems to be a sad man in general, and appears to have something of a violent past. As things develop, Gary, Gary’s dad (Gary Poulter), Joe, and a local sleaze bag named Willie-Russell (Ronnie Gene Blevins) have a series of interactions that see them develop relationships both friendly and antagonistic, but that all grow on top of an undercurrent of violence that’s constantly threatening to bubble to the surface and consume everyone involved. From the very beginning, Joe exists in a world that’s absolutely steeped in doom and dread. The only real question seems to be just how bad things are going to get for our main characters before the end credits roll.
Along with that established dread comes a feeling of tension that exists in pretty much every frame of this movie. Rather than try to hide that tension or cut it with a little bit of levity, Green instead taps directly into it and uses it to engage you on both a mental and physical level as you watch his story play out. His characters have interactions that are perfectly polite on the surface, but Green’s focus will be on a bit of strained body language or a nervous twitch that lets you know there are ulterior motives. Fists clench, eyes squint with suspicion, and you’re constantly left wondering if this is the scene where things are going to break out into violence—and break out into violence they do.
Before the meat of the action can happen, the mood has to be set though, and if there’s anything Joe is really good at, it’s establishing a time and a place that looks a lot like the world we live in, but that feels just slightly askew from it—like one of those dark old fairytales that always involved death and mutilation in some way. There’s one scene in particular where we’re given a montage of a handful of the featured characters as they go about their business and travel along the paths the film has put them on—presented over dreamy Nicolas Cage narration—that feels like one of the extended montage sequences out of last year’s Spring Breakers, and that movie was almost entirely about mood. Joe tells more of a traditional story, for certain, but the two definitely share some DNA.
Speaking of Cage, probably we should address his performance here, seeing as he’s become something of an elephant in the room. Despite the fact that the man does really good work every now and again, at this point in his career Cage has been vilified as being an over-actor who does nothing but garbage projects, or at least as an eccentric who often allows his own ticks and obsessions to overtake the projects he’s working on. The good news here though is that Joe is one of those rare occasions where Cage is not only working on a strong project, but where he’s also using his talents to serve his character rather than to convince you what a space alien Nic Cage the performer is. Joe is a complex, layered character, and Cage not only plays him close enough to the vest to keep his secrets secret until you need to know them, he also plays him authentically enough to where you actually believe in him as a human being. This might be the first time the guy ever played a southern character and didn’t use it as an excuse to go full-Elvis, and that has to be seen as some kind of miracle.
Those who have seen his work in Mud probably have a certain set of expectations for Sheridan as he plays the other lead here, and he does not disappoint. Probably there isn’t anything here as complex or challenging as what he did as the lead of Mud, but he’s once again really effective as the prototypical coming of age character, even though it’s kind of hard to stand out when you’re acting opposite a Nic Cage who’s actually trying as well as a whole treasure trove of character actors who all demand attention in their own, unique ways. And speaking of those character actors—damn, they’re good. Poulter is both heartbreaking and detestable playing the alcoholic, vagabond dad. Blevins gets under your skin while playing his slimy character like few people this side of King Joffrey can. Heck, even the one-line unknowns who make up Joe’s work crew give universally interesting performances. Joe is a movie that exists in a somewhat exaggerated universe, but that’s somehow able to feel completely naturalistic and pseudo-documentary nonetheless. Not an unimpressive accomplishment.
If there’s one thing that I’d truly like to praise Joe for though, it’s how well it works as a treatise on how awful dogs are. There are several pet dogs who play prominent roles in this story, and each one is an asshole, down to the canine. Why on Earth do people bring these over-excited noise machines into their houses and treat them as if they are children? Dogs belong out in the woods helping people find the ducks that they’ve shot, or protecting used car parts out in a junk yard—not living in houses with humans. Seriously though, I hate dogs, but if you love them, you should know that there’s some disturbing dog-on-dog violence that happens in this movie. The pooch brawl isn’t nearly the grossest thing that happens over the course of Joe, but many people seem to respond to violence to animals more strongly for some reason.
To wrap this thing up with a bow, Joe is a story that exists in a difficult world and is a bit of a difficult watch, so it’s not going to be for everyone, but if you’re the sort of person who’s able to handle a smidge of unpleasantness, so long as it goes somewhere, then probably you’re going to want to give it a try. Because this movie does indeed go somewhere. It doesn’t just present you with disturbing behavior for no reason other than to be salacious. And it works as such a great character piece that you’re bound to find yourself completely invested in the plights of Joe and Gary as they play out in front of you. Joe is some real humanist stuff, and it’s nice to see David Gordon Green getting back to it.
