'The Big Bend' Meanders More Than It Touches
Oh boy. I'm going to be that guy again. The Big Bend has been adored by everyone. I wish I had the same feeling. Writer/Director Brett Wagner's film is a heartfelt story about the fragility of relationships. Admittedly, its themes resonate. If only they could have resonated a little earlier. The movie is a slow burn. I'm fine with slow cinema. That is when it benefits the story. Many would argue the slow pace in The Big Bend is an intentional tool used to throw the audiences off when the movie comes to its eventful third act. The argument is perfectly valid. For most folks, the slow pace will be fine. For my ADD brain, I felt like I was watching a knockoff Richard Linklater film.
The film has a corny start. The picture opens with a long shot of the winding Texas roads. In a font that looks like it was made in minutes, the title fades up on the screen, indicating to the audience that this will be an easygoing film. For most of the picture, that's true. The movie opens with a cheesy bit of dialog between Cory Price (Jason Butler Harner) and his wife, Melanie (Virginia Kull). On the drive through the beautiful landscape, the two make a stop to overlook the glowing lights over the mountains of a night desert sky. While admiring the scenery, Cory talks about how beautiful the lights look to Melanie. Ugh! I get it. The film is about the beauty and also the danger of nature. But the dialog was so basic in that scene that I would have sufficed for a wordless sequence where the couple appreciates the view over their words. It would have said more than, "Oh, that's so beautiful." I know I sound like I'm nitpicking. I honestly am. You try watching a hundred or more movies a year and not end up picking them apart. As a critic, you start to notice things. It's kind of a curse taken from overconsumption.
After the mushy romantic exchange, The Prices (who are visiting from New Jersey) meet their friends, the Talbotts, who live up in the Texas Desert. Mac (David Sullivan) and Georgia Talbott (Erica Ash) Appear as a content couple. They have two beautiful children, a nice house out in the middle of nature, and financial security. For the first chunk of the picture, everything seems to be going fine. And let me tell you that the first half of the movie is a drag. It's not until about almost thirty minutes into the film that we get any sign of character development or conflict. Most of the picture's opening half were long scenes where characters are cuddling while talking about nothing in particular that drew me to them. That or long scenes of people walking through nature and smoking weed.
Look, I get it. The film depicts the calm before the storm. It's a buildup in which the setup informs us that these characters, although happy on the outside, feel great pain on the inside. Thirty minutes in when we finally get a taste of something, Georgia reveals to Melanie that she's thinking about leaving her husband. Later, Mac reveals to Cory that he's not happy in his relationship with Georgia. These are great anchor points to a story that could take off. But it meanders again in its middle half until the story takes off after its first hour. Even when the story takes off, it halts its momentum to show us Melanie and Georgia getting drunk in the bar. Without giving the plot away, I appreciate what Brett Wagner is doing. He's showing what the actual passage of time looks like during a crisis. Wagener's not aiming to make a blockbuster meant to hold onto an audience's limited attention span. He's making a methodical piece about how easily our lives can fall apart if we're not careful. Unfortunately, when the picture reaches its highly climactic third act, everything is rushed through the door.
I appreciate films that build up their characters. But there's not much that's discernable about these characters where they're interesting to follow. Cory and Melanie just come off as your normal couple, where there's no real personality in either of them. The same goes for Georgia, who's just kind of a bland person to watch. The only character with a real personality is Mac, and he's annoying to listen to.
The film has an explosive, unexpected ending. It goes from a Richard Linklater flick to a nail-biting thriller. Yet, the pacing makes the thriller aspect come off as half-baked as if the movie didn't know what kind of film it wanted to be. I know you're going to disagree with me on this review. The Big Bend is a film festival darling that's currently resting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. I wish I could go with the crowd, but I have to be honest with myself. To most folks, it's a meditative exercise in the meaning of happiness where nature tests our emotional limits. For me, it's a basic plot about unhappy couples with a rushed ending that comes as too little, too late.
