Stillwater
focus featuresComing off of his 2016 Best Picture win for Spotlight, Tom McCarthy's trajectory as a filmmaker has been a confusing one. Immediately returning to his more basic comedic roots with the throwaway Disney+ original Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, it seemed McCarthy might have been moving on from his more elevated dramatic work, but this proved false when his next project Stillwater was revealed. Loosely based on the real-life murder of Meredith Kercher, Stillwater sees conservative American Bill Baker (Matt Damon) travel to Marseille to visit his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) who is in jail for the murder of her girlfriend who she was living with while studying abroad. Bill maintains Allison's innocence and, when Allison gets a lead on who actually murdered her girlfriend, Bill sets out on a one-man war to find the killer and prove Allison is innocent.
Even within the context of McCarthy's strongest efforts to date, Stillwater becomes a powerful and poignant meditation on grief and closure that feels like a mature elevation for the director. For a film that advertises itself as a gripping thriller – an identity it defines itself by at multiple turns within the feature itself – there is an incredible amount of depth within the film's 139-minute runtime. No character defines this more than Allison. Led by a stunning performance from Abigail Breslin who captures the character's desperation and sorrow with an honest and authentic heart, Allison gives the film an undeniable emotional burden that adds intricacy to every frame. Not only is Allison held in prison for a crime the audience is led to believe she didn't do, but the process has stripped her of the humanistic emotions she still holds trapped within her. Whilst the story might be based around finding the killer, it was ultimately Allison's love who died and she has not been able to grieve or come to terms with that love not just being taken away but being murdered in her own apartment. She is trapped: not just physically in prison but emotionally with this lack of closure that has eaten away at her and forever damaged the young girl who entered France hoping for an escape.
In a more subtle sense, this depth is found also within Bill. Dealing with the death of his wife and the attacks made against his daughter, Bill lives life in constant conflict and has no closure himself. It only furthers the praise the screenplay deserves; his story and character are so naturally and poignantly expressed and found throughout the film's runtime. From a connection between himself and the oil refineries that are found both in France and his home state of Oklahoma to the humanity found within the character as he meets a woman named Virginie (Camille Cottin) and forms a relationship with both her and her daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud) while staying in France helping his daughter, there is a masterful artistry and commanding of this character that creates a truly wonderful final character study. It helps that Matt Damon might just be giving the best performance of his career, with a grittiness and vulnerability that feels like a revelation for the actor in the same way Ben Affleck succeeded in The Way Back.
This sense of artistry and passion carries over from the screenplay to the technical elements of the film. The cinematography from Masanobu Takayanagi is nothing short of stunning, with the film transitioning from intimate moments of emotion to wider shots of overwhelming space with a flawless hand. The editing by Tom McArdle is also wonderful and is the hidden key this movie needed to help the final product work. When you have a film with this much to say and a longer runtime, there needs to be a strong hand keeping it all together and pushing forwards a competent final feature and McArdle does just this.
This isn't to say the film is flawless, however, as especially in its screenplay there are two major pieces that feel questionable. The first is the politics of the story. Highly discussed ahead of the film's release, Stillwater continually manages to work in political statements within the character of Bill that is supposed to give a new angle to the modern political debate within America. While it is never outright stated if Bill supports Donald Trump, it is clear that he leans more conservative and discussions of things like gun control find their way into the conversation of the film time and time again. Not only do these topics not add anything to the actual heart and soul of the film, but it makes the characters unnecessarily polarising for audiences that easily can be – and judging by the media response to the film, are – distracted by their inclusion.
The ending also is highly questionable. Without getting into spoilers, the film is obviously retelling a real event with Allison being a stand-in for Amanda Knox. While the film is fictionalised, it does feel incredibly dirty with some of the revelations and messages it adds to this character in its finale that feels all the more uncomfortable as the film itself criticises the attacks given to this character. Amanda Knox had to deal with the death of her roommate in 2007, and to try and add certain pieces to the story truly feels quite disgusting. Even if the film wants to hide behind its status as fiction, the argument feels cheap and, clearly, the filmmakers are mature enough to understand what they are doing. It also doesn't help that this direction really adds nothing of value to the final film itself and, if anything, takes away from the impact the rest of the film was accomplishing. Had these elements been cut, not only would the narrative run cleaner but the film could have tightened up a bit as it feels just 10 to 15-minutes too long as is.
Stillwater is a confusing feature to truly create one solid thesis on. As a work of fiction, the film feels near-masterpiece level with Tom McCarthy, Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin giving possibly the best performances of their careers. The movie, however, is undeniably tied to a real-life tragedy and feels manipulative and exploitative in how it treats that relationship, especially with how little space there is between them.
