Movie Review : Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

The main challenge of being a successful artist is to constantly reinvent yourself. Take iconic rock band Nirvana, for example: their album NEVERMIND was so popular, it changed the landscape of mainstream music in the 90s. It gave grunge music international spotlight and created several currents of alternative rock, but instead of pursuing in that direction and cashing-in, they recorded IN UTERO and went in an exciting new direction that left their casual fans discombobulated.

Nirvana was short-lived but it never lost sight of what's important: creation. I wouldn't compare AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS to a Nirvana album. It's more like a Soul Asylum or a Counting Crows album. It's something loosely inspired by something great, but that doesn't have its own thing, y'feel me?

Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) are very much in love. They also love to rob financial institutions at gunpoint, so they ain't friends with the law. They even get arrested one day, after a score went south and Ruth shot lawman Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster) somewhere in the chest area. Bob takes all the blame because he's so desperately in love, but gets 25 to life for his trouble. Oh, he said that because Ruth was pregnant, too and he didn't want his baby to grow up in a foster home or even worse, adopted. After a couple years behind bars, Bob escapes, hoping to reunite with his wife and daughter. In the meantime, Ruth is trying to cope with loneliness and the challenges of raising a child alone, with Patrick Wheeler himself sniffing around and looking for affection. Because there ain't many people to love in small towns and it makes you overlook things such as attempted murder *.

AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS is a movie that presents itself very well, like a clean-cut cousin on Christmas Eve. It has that Terrence Malick warm, distinctive feeling to it. The issue is that it is SO in love with it's own aesthetics and with the fact that it's a romance movie that it doesn't care about anything else. To be interesting, romance needs to have complex, layered characters. David Lowery seems to be treating bank robbing just like any normal job, back then. It's only vaguely alluded to that Bob was a downtrodden kid and doesn't look aything like a career criminal. There isn't any historical backdrop to explain it either. The way AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTScannonballs through its first twenty minutes, I don't think it cares either. Bob and Ruth are like teenagers. Scratch that, they are a teenager's romantic fantasy. They are something you can project yourself into, but that lacks intrinsic meaning. You need your own broken romance to filter AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS through.

There is that one scene that freaked me out.

Patrick Wheeler is looking for Bob in a barn, but Bob has left a long time ago. It's a loooooooooong scene with a beautiful sunset in the background. Why is it so goddamn long? Is there some suspense? No, it's pretty fucking clear that Bob left a long time ago and the trail is cold. Is there some symbolism involved? Well....no, because you learn LATER in the movie that Patrick is a lonely, miserable bastard that's longing for every little scrap of love he can find. There is no way to understand Patrick is lonely through Ben Foster's understated play alone. I guess you could call it symbolic foreshadowing, but even then, that scene is way too long, contemplative and enamored with itself to work. The barn is beautiful, but the barn is meaningless until you understand how bad Patrick wants Ruth and it ain't all that evident at first. I have this rule that you can't love your work more than your audience does and AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS is guilty of that.

I'm a firm believer that in the process of creation, great material just emerges. You have to create earnestly until the magic happens and standout stuff just emerges on its own. Those who create know what I'm talking about. AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS is inspired, I'll give it that. Its original intent is also interesting : the greatest loves fuel on absence. But the self-involved, self-satisfied nature of this movie got in the way of my enjoyment. Yeah, it's a Terrence-Malick-likemovie about bank robbing outlaws, so it's supposed to feel somewhat younger, fresher. If it's what you're looking for, just watch THE TREE OF LIFE and pretend Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are actually bank robbers and stay away from that syrupy, tear-jerking era romance that banks on a crime gimmick to gain your viewership **.

* It's more complicated than that, but I thought it was a funny way to bring it.

** After thrashing AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS I didn't want to say Rooney Mara is absolutely gorgeous in that film, because it would have been sexist. I'll just leave that here, instead

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