Ain’t Them Bodies Saints | Little White Lies

Ain’t Them Bod­ies Saints

05 Sep 2013 / Released: 06 Sep 2013

Words by Adam Woodward

Directed by David Lowery

Starring Ben Foster, Casey Affleck, and Rooney Mara

A group of people in casual country attire, including hats and boots, standing together in a rural setting with trees and vegetation in the background.
A group of people in casual country attire, including hats and boots, standing together in a rural setting with trees and vegetation in the background.
3

Anticipation.

Impressive cast, relatively unproven director.

4

Enjoyment.

With Ain’t Them Bodies Saints David Lowery has announced himself as a serious talent.

4

In Retrospect.

Not quite the new American classic it strives to be, but one you’ll want to revisit.

The spir­it of Ter­rence Mal­ick is evoked in this ten­der west­ern star­ring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara.

An aching, ele­giac love song that imme­di­ate­ly calls to mind Ter­rence Malick’s Bad­lands and Days of Heav­en, the third fea­ture-length­er from edi­tor-turned-writer/di­rec­tor David Low­ery is a valen­tine to a gold­en age of Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. It tells the sto­ry of two star­crossed lovers whose uncom­pro­mis­ing com­mit­ment to one anoth­er fuels an intense and destruc­tive romance that feels ripped from the pages of some great-lost novel.

Set in Texas Hill Coun­try some time in the ear­ly 1970s, we meet impetu­ous out­law Bob Mul­doon (Casey Affleck in full Robert Ford mode — schem­ing, soft­ly-spo­ken, often found lurk­ing in the shad­ows) and his decep­tive­ly meek wife Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) plan­ning their future togeth­er while attempt­ing to stay on the right side of the law.

Bob and Ruth may look and act the part but they’re no reg­u­lar Bon­nie and Clyde. Theirs may be a bit­ter­sweet por­trait of doomed com­pan­ion­ship, but it’s one that is ulti­mate­ly defined by the phys­i­cal dis­tance between them. Fate­ful­ly it’s not long before they’re torn from each other’s arms, their trail of pet­ty crime com­ing to a head in a spray of bul­lets at Bob’s father’s aban­doned farm­house where, after being cor­nered by police, Bob is forced to turn him­self in, pro­ceed­ing to take the fall for Ruth for the non-fatal shoot­ing of one of the arrest­ing officers.

Years pass. From the inside Bob writes long let­ters home promis­ing that he will one day make it out and back to Ruth and the young daugh­ter he has nev­er met. All Ruth can do is sit and count the days, secure in the knowl­edge that Bob is a man of his word. Increas­ing­ly, how­ev­er, Ruth finds her­self becom­ing recep­tive to the neigh­bourly advances of local sher­iff Patrick Wheel­er (Ben Fos­ter), whom hav­ing recov­ered from the injury he sus­tained in aid­ing Bob’s cap­ture has become obsessed both with keep­ing him behind bars and brib­ing his way into Ruth’s life with kind­ness and compassion.

When Bob breaks out at the sixth attempt Patrick shows his true colours and a painful real­i­sa­tion quick­ly sinks in — though he may be able to keep his head low for now, Bob must even­tu­al­ly face up to the hard truth that his free­dom and being with his fam­i­ly are not mutu­al­ly exclusive.

Wear­ing its influ­ences on its sleeve but nev­er feel­ing stale or deriv­a­tive, Ain’t Them Bod­ies Saints is an immac­u­late piece of sto­ry­telling that boasts seri­ous tal­ent whichev­er way you look. Spe­cial men­tion must go to Brad­ford Young’s gor­geous sun-bleached cin­e­matog­ra­phy, which cou­pled with Daniel Hart’s ubiq­ui­tous score of nervy, tip­toe­ing strings and soft hand­claps gives the film a dream-like quality.

Indeed, as the film reach­es its exquis­ite­ly under­stat­ed crescen­do you begin to won­der whether Bob and Ruth might actu­al­ly have been killed dur­ing the shootout at the old farm­house, and what just fol­lowed was in fact their dying fan­ta­sy. Per­haps it’s just eas­i­er that way.

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