At Any Price

Whether in times of jubi­la­tion or tragedy, noth­ing quite epit­o­mis­es the bul­let­proof com­mu­ni­ty spir­it of small­town USA quite like a hearty crowd ren­di­tion of The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner. In At Any Price the famous anthem rever­ber­ates with patri­ot­ic fer­vour around a stock car der­by, where Dean Whip­ple (Zac Efron) is about to make a huge step towards real­is­ing his dream of becom­ing the next NASCAR sensation.

It’s an occa­sion of mixed emo­tions for father Hen­ry (Den­nis Quaid), a proud Iowa crop sell­er who, hav­ing already seen his eldest son turn his back on the fam­i­ly busi­ness, is des­per­ate for Dean to pick up the reins. Hen­ry epit­o­mis­es one of the largest crises fac­ing agri­cul­ture in Amer­i­ca today. In this age of mass-con­sump­tion and exten­sive GMO farm­ing, mod­est home­grown busi­ness like the Whipple’s are being forced to adapt or risk being swal­lowed up by an indus­try in flux. It’s time to get big or die, but with no one in line to keep on plowin’ Henry’s prospects look bleak.

Plen­ty of food for thought here, then. And yet while direc­tor Rah­min Bahrani’s corn-fed fam­i­ly dra­ma deals in sim­ple home truths, there’s an unset­tling lack of moral fibre at the film’s core. Hen­ry, for exam­ple, speaks about the virtues of loy­al­ty and lis­ten­ing yet prac­tices nei­ther, all the while neglect­ing his respon­si­bil­i­ties as a father and hus­band. Then there’s Dean.

Efron is par­tic­u­lar­ly good as the head­strong son who’s deter­mined to forge his own path. Yet too much of the film’s dra­mat­ic impe­tus relies on Dean’s angsty dis­po­si­tion, and his actions often feel irra­tional. In one scene, he shoots up an auto shop to steal a part, before promis­ing his dot­ing teen girl­friend (Mai­ka Mon­roe) he’ll nev­er do any­thing to endan­ger their love again. Lat­er he shares a steamy moment with his father’s lover (Heather Gra­ham, giv­ing legs to a hor­ri­bly under­de­vel­oped bit char­ac­ter) in a cornseed silo in a scene that’s as pas­sion­less as it sounds. It’s all a bit unnecessary.

Those dis­cre­tions are mere­ly aper­i­tifs, how­ev­er, for the film’s piv­otal scene, which sees Dean com­mit a ter­ri­ble crime that inex­plic­a­bly goes unpun­ished (unless you con­sid­er a guilty con­science due sen­tenc­ing, that is). There is a know­ing irony in the fact that Dean’s reck­less­ness ulti­mate­ly forces him to give up his dreams and accept his inher­i­tance, but the fact that it takes such a seri­ous atroc­i­ty to put the Whib­bles back on top leaves a sour taste in the mouth.