A 21st CENTURY "COMING HOME" ; ONE OF THE BEST POST 9/11 FILMS TO DATE
The war drama has been around as long as man has been fighting man or so it seems at least on the silver screen. Each war has its definitive cinematic portrayal about the aftermath and homecoming of its combatants, forever changed by his or her experiences on the battlefield and the constant tug of consciousness of accepting the term of hero or patriot; or not.
The latest endeavor by newcomer filmmaker Patrick J. Donnelly, " DIVERGENCE", combines many of the elements of its subgenre the wounded vet retuning to his hometown much for the worse trying to fit back into the groove of society while attempting to process the aftershocks of his experience while trying to find a reason for it all in this Iraq War drama about Tim Lawson (Jakob Hawkins), a chopper pilot who has sustained a leg injury causing him to return stateside to heal until his preliminary check-up to ascertain if he is suitable to return to the warfront. Tim is a mild-mannered, quiet and deeply in pain young man whose return to his NJ Shore hamlet finds himself reunited with his best friend Dave (Ben Hindell), a self-employed contractor and his attorney girlfriend Jill (Jeannine Kaspar), who help him find a realtor to rent a bungalow until his scheduled physical.
Heidi (Marci Adilman), the realtor finds Tim an affordable temporary home and recognizes him immediately as former high school alum she secretly was in love with. Heidi's somewhat aggressive yet well-meaning free spirit is a bit of a comfort to the wary Tim and they have a half-hearted fling.
Tim's next-door neighbor, Clare O'Neil (the ethereal Traci Ann Wolfe), meanwhile, is holed up in her seaside cottage for nearly a year after the traumatic tragedy of a lethal car crash that claimed her loving husband and their four-year old daughter. Clare is inconsolable in spite of the prodding of her mother Constance (Mary Looram) and her brother Chris (Daniel Harnett) to move on and at the very least entertain the thought of a memorial service. Clare is damaged goods who is in a consistent depressive state fueled by prescription pills and vodka to the point of a near nervous breakdown.
One night Clare's grief has hit its limit to the degree of her stupored state involving a loud primal scream awakening Tim to investigate in time to see his mysterious neighbor walking directly into the pounding surf. Quickly racing to her in time, Tim saves her life and returns her to her house where she is immediately embarrassed and after a hasty goodnight Tim promises to return the next day to check up on her.
Clare eventually realizes she has made a horrific mistake and apologizes to Tim when he pays his second visit, offering to fix her broken front door lock and gradually the two injured, lost souls seek solace in one another. Tim begins to let his guard down by actually feeling something in a long time: love. Clare thaws from her frozen inertia to welcome Tim as a lover and eventually a soul mate. But Tim's forthcoming physical looms in the distance causing the couple to make a decision: leave the country to avoid Tim facing another tour of duty or for Tim to fulfill his obligation to the military.
Donnelly, a veteran key grip and director of photography, makes a remarkable film-making debut in this low-budget indie as a labor of love (his wife Meg Sudik is the film's executive producer) and wisely eschews the politics of the current state of war in the world but instead focuses on how two disparate yet equal people have found each other in a world gone mad. His cinematography is clear-eyed with the smart choice of using the barren yet beautiful shoreline act as a character as well it eerily looks like the moon at night and serves as a metaphor for almost being a way-station (particularly in the sequence when the two tremulous new friends find themselves at night on a deserted beach bench sharing their life stories together). Donnelly's editing with Robert Mead is economical yet clever with his fades to quick black and some sequences ending abruptly as the next begins but not in a hurried way at all. The dirge-like melancholic score by Ronen Landa suggests a mournful chamber music piece that underscores the protagonists' situation beautifully.
But the sublime acting by Hawkins (who resembles Peter Krause) his haunted eyes speak volumes for the words he can barely articulate except the excruciating moment of re- uniting with his Alzheimer's afflicted father in a nursing home of: "I just don't want to do this anymore" in reference of returning to the war and the beautiful Wolfe, who resembles Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, whose quiet demeanor only belies the terror under the surface of tying to start a new, fulfilling life again.
The film as a whole works as a character study and has the feel of a novella come to life but it is perhaps the best post 9/11 film I've seen including "UNITED 93" and "WORLD TRADE CENTER" because it focuses on a real human element: the promise of love amidst immense tragedy. This may very well be the "COMING HOME" of its generation.
The war drama has been around as long as man has been fighting man or so it seems at least on the silver screen. Each war has its definitive cinematic portrayal about the aftermath and homecoming of its combatants, forever changed by his or her experiences on the battlefield and the constant tug of consciousness of accepting the term of hero or patriot; or not.
The latest endeavor by newcomer filmmaker Patrick J. Donnelly, " DIVERGENCE", combines many of the elements of its subgenre the wounded vet retuning to his hometown much for the worse trying to fit back into the groove of society while attempting to process the aftershocks of his experience while trying to find a reason for it all in this Iraq War drama about Tim Lawson (Jakob Hawkins), a chopper pilot who has sustained a leg injury causing him to return stateside to heal until his preliminary check-up to ascertain if he is suitable to return to the warfront. Tim is a mild-mannered, quiet and deeply in pain young man whose return to his NJ Shore hamlet finds himself reunited with his best friend Dave (Ben Hindell), a self-employed contractor and his attorney girlfriend Jill (Jeannine Kaspar), who help him find a realtor to rent a bungalow until his scheduled physical.
Heidi (Marci Adilman), the realtor finds Tim an affordable temporary home and recognizes him immediately as former high school alum she secretly was in love with. Heidi's somewhat aggressive yet well-meaning free spirit is a bit of a comfort to the wary Tim and they have a half-hearted fling.
Tim's next-door neighbor, Clare O'Neil (the ethereal Traci Ann Wolfe), meanwhile, is holed up in her seaside cottage for nearly a year after the traumatic tragedy of a lethal car crash that claimed her loving husband and their four-year old daughter. Clare is inconsolable in spite of the prodding of her mother Constance (Mary Looram) and her brother Chris (Daniel Harnett) to move on and at the very least entertain the thought of a memorial service. Clare is damaged goods who is in a consistent depressive state fueled by prescription pills and vodka to the point of a near nervous breakdown.
One night Clare's grief has hit its limit to the degree of her stupored state involving a loud primal scream awakening Tim to investigate in time to see his mysterious neighbor walking directly into the pounding surf. Quickly racing to her in time, Tim saves her life and returns her to her house where she is immediately embarrassed and after a hasty goodnight Tim promises to return the next day to check up on her.
Clare eventually realizes she has made a horrific mistake and apologizes to Tim when he pays his second visit, offering to fix her broken front door lock and gradually the two injured, lost souls seek solace in one another. Tim begins to let his guard down by actually feeling something in a long time: love. Clare thaws from her frozen inertia to welcome Tim as a lover and eventually a soul mate. But Tim's forthcoming physical looms in the distance causing the couple to make a decision: leave the country to avoid Tim facing another tour of duty or for Tim to fulfill his obligation to the military.
Donnelly, a veteran key grip and director of photography, makes a remarkable film-making debut in this low-budget indie as a labor of love (his wife Meg Sudik is the film's executive producer) and wisely eschews the politics of the current state of war in the world but instead focuses on how two disparate yet equal people have found each other in a world gone mad. His cinematography is clear-eyed with the smart choice of using the barren yet beautiful shoreline act as a character as well it eerily looks like the moon at night and serves as a metaphor for almost being a way-station (particularly in the sequence when the two tremulous new friends find themselves at night on a deserted beach bench sharing their life stories together). Donnelly's editing with Robert Mead is economical yet clever with his fades to quick black and some sequences ending abruptly as the next begins but not in a hurried way at all. The dirge-like melancholic score by Ronen Landa suggests a mournful chamber music piece that underscores the protagonists' situation beautifully.
But the sublime acting by Hawkins (who resembles Peter Krause) his haunted eyes speak volumes for the words he can barely articulate except the excruciating moment of re- uniting with his Alzheimer's afflicted father in a nursing home of: "I just don't want to do this anymore" in reference of returning to the war and the beautiful Wolfe, who resembles Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, whose quiet demeanor only belies the terror under the surface of tying to start a new, fulfilling life again.
The film as a whole works as a character study and has the feel of a novella come to life but it is perhaps the best post 9/11 film I've seen including "UNITED 93" and "WORLD TRADE CENTER" because it focuses on a real human element: the promise of love amidst immense tragedy. This may very well be the "COMING HOME" of its generation.
