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JUSTIN TANNER REVIEWS MASTER GARDENER
Paul Schrader’s latest film, “Master Gardener” is not an easy movie to love. The initial tone is chilly and off-putting, the images flat, the performances so repressed they approach catatonia. It was a full twenty minutes before I warmed up to what was happening on the screen. And by the end I was eating happily out of Schrader’s hand.
It takes a brave and confident filmmaker to purposely choose not to engage their audience, to lock down the camera at a distance with an objective frame and simply report the facts without emotion, like an old school documentary. Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Rian Johnson and the other emotionally soggy directors like to start off their movies BIG, with the visual equivalent of a sloppy kiss or jokey elbow to the ribs. It is a painfully blatant grab for attention to let us know we’re in for something familiar and safe, and we can juuust relax. I prefer the other form of seduction, the kind that makes you work for it. I don’t like movies to act like a big slobbering dog sitting in my lap and licking my face. Sometimes I want to make the first move. As in Schrader’s two previous films, “First Reformed” (2017) and “The Card Counter” (2021), “Master Gardener” begins with a voiceover narration from another one of ‘God’s lonely men,’ Narvel Roth, the titular gardener, played here by Joel Edgerton (”The Stranger”) with such stringent aloofness — his face a blank mask, his voice a scraped monotone — it’s a miracle the movie makes it out of the gate at all. Like Ethan Hawke’s priest in “First Reformed” and Oscar Isaac’s disgraced soldier in “The Card Counter," Edgerton’s gardener is an isolated, bitter protagonist whose series of misfortunes — and terrible decisions — have led him into an untenable corner from which redemption, or even connection with another human being, seems like a hopeless proposition. I won’t spoil the details of his past, since Schrader’s breathtaking character reveal provides an all too rare moment of “coup de cinema." Suffice it to say, whatever qualms I had been having about the film’s level of engagement were blown off the screen in an instant. Sigourney Weaver as Mrs. Haverhill, a rich, brittle heiress prone to rages, whose expansive botanical gardens provide Edgerton’s loner his vast canvas to ‘master,’ has her own secrets, which Schrader masterfully unveils in a series of adeptly staged scenes. Weaver is working within a limited range of emotional colors, but when the grand gesture is required, her reservoir of pent up anger positively explodes, reminding us of what a galvanic star she still is at the age of 73.
The third corner of the film’s emotional triangle is provided by Maya, Mrs. Haverhill’s grandniece, a troubled teenager who comes to apprentice for Edgerton. Schrader had originally wanted Zendaya (”Dune”) for the role, but apparently the paycheck wasn’t big enough. (In an interview with IndieWire he was quoted as saying “You can call Zendaya’s agent, the only thing you hear on the other end is someone laughing.”) Which is too bad. Because where the film stumbles is with the unconvincing — and very green — performance by Quintessa Swindell (”Euphoria”). Her Maya is endearing and lovely and she gives it her all, but we never quite believe her as a drug addict, which ends up hurting the film’s third act where Maya is called upon to dig deep. Swindell manages the basic steps of a burgeoning romance well enough, but the raw exposure required to play opioid withdrawals convincingly are simply beyond her. But it’s not a deal breaker. Though Swindell isn’t particularly memorable, she’s good enough to keep the love story alive. And what she lacks in gravity she more than makes up for in clear-eyed honesty. Of course none of this would work without Joel Edgerton’s heartbreaking commitment. He starts the movie as a closed fist, a room with no light. And for a long time it appears there will be no solace for this broken man. But, like all of Schrader’s antiheroes, his Narvel Roth “Master Gardener” eventually wakes from his emotional slumber — when the thing he loves most is threatened.
The permutations of the plot are best left to the viewer. In fact, my advice is to go in without having seen the trailer, which gives away the entire story, including all the surprises. But be warned: it’s not a lark. The movie is like a grumpy curmudgeon, almost defying you to stay in your seat. But if you’re patient and put your trust in one of our most singular filmmakers — who, at 76 is still working at the top of his game — your attention will be rewarded. IN THEATERS MAY 19
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