If George W. Bush weren't president, Old Joy would still be a film of deft artistic touch and relevancy. But with "the Decider" facing his last few years in power, Kelly Reichardt's latest film takes on additional meaning. Its protagonists are worn down, thirty-something liberal men, Kurt and Mark, college buddies reuniting years after their graduation. Their rendezvous is not an official function, just a chance to catch up while searching for a hot spring in the Oregon Cascades, and Reichardt fills the movie's many moments of silence with tangible import.
The film is both a story of male friendship and a story of lost belief, of a joy that clearly existed before and is now wordless pain. These are men headed in opposite directions-Mark (Daniel London)toward a family and Kurt (Will Oldham) toward his next joint, Mark towards adulthood and Kurt towards perpetual childhood. Properly enough, Mark comes outfitted with a vintage Volvo station wagon and a radio perpetually tuned to NPR; Kurt rocks a classic woodsman beard and some board shorts.
The film's climactic scene, filmed at the almost unbelievably serene Bagby Hot Springs in Oregon, is certainly the most poignant and perfect moment from a 2006 film. As Kurt tells his friend a story from which the film draws its title, Mark's head remains above water, his eyes frozen in contemplation. His left arm slowly and purposefully slides into the tub. For a moment, it seems like he will respond, will lash out at Kurt and the scene and slight film that has preceded it will topple towards heavy-handed exposition. But instead the action becomes one of release and recognition, a giving up. And then, just as quickly, there's Mark out of the tub again, there's the two of them, back in the Volvo, and then finally there's Kurt, back on the streets, the night engulfing him as he crosses the road and doesn't even seem to move. It's visual poetry as storytelling, and it's magnificent.
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