The Films of Kelly Reichardt: Old Joy (2006)

Old Joy (2006) 

Directed by: Kelly Reichardt.

Written by: Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichardt.

Starring: Daniel London (Mark), Will Oldham (Kurt), Tanya Smith (Tanya), Robin Rosenberg (Waitress), Keri Moran (Lawnmower).

 

Old Joy is one of the most quietly moving films about male friendship I have ever seen. It’s one of those films that will leave many complaining that nothing happens, but if you’re paying attention, a lot happens – everything really. It centers on a weekend camping trip taken by two old friends, who have drifted apart for reasons never explained, but easily to intuit – and how they come back together, if only briefly.

 

Mark (Daniel London) is married with a kid on the way, and a job and while he seems quietly content, he doesn’t hesitate when his old friend Kurt (Will Oldham) gets back in touch, and suggests a weekend camping trip in the nearby mountains – and a visit to a hot spring there. Kurt is the opposite of Mark – still drifting in his life, with no real direction – he talks of plans, but you doubt he’ll ever follow through on any of them, and spends much of his time still getting stoned. Mark has moved on from whatever high school, or college, friendship they had – but Kurt is still holding on. You get the sense that Kurt wants to reconnect, because Mark is far from the only friend Kurt has been disconnected to over the years – whereas for Mark, the weekend is an excuse to get out of his impending fatherhood for a couple of days.

 

The film is quiet and subtle – and only 76 minutes long. A lot of time is spent with the pair of them in the car – listening to talk radio lamenting the ineffective Democrats for not doing more to stand up to Bush (oh, what innocent times 2006 seem today). Kurt says he knows where they’re going – but of course, he doesn’t. Because Kurt is played by Will Oldham, he talks – a lot – about his plans, about his thoughts and opinions about the universe (including lamenting the fact that when he took a course of physics, he knew more than those teaching it – although he doesn’t have “the math” to back up what he’s saying. Mark is quieter – more in his own head than connecting with Kurt.

 

The film never spells anything out for the audience – it doesn’t need to. We recognize immediately why these two used to be friends, and why they aren’t so much anymore. Words aren’t needed for that – it’s all there in the interactions between these two men, and the great performances by London and Oldham. Whatever connection hey had is broken, but you can see its remnants there, and how both make concessions for the other one – not calling them out on things that if they were closer, they may well have. It leads up to that scene at the hot springs, where perhaps, for a moment, that connection is restored.

 

This is the film where you really do start to see what would become director Kelly Reichardt’s signature style coming through. She has an unflashy, unhurried style. She sits back and observes, and lets the characters interactions tell us everything, without explicitly telling us anything. You have to intuit a lot in her movies, because she doesn’t spell it out.

 

Old Joy is a subtly powerful film, and its powerful precisely because it doesn’t try to be. It gets us inside this strained friendship for a little while, and tells us everything we need to know about it – and the characters themselves. By the end, you get the feeling that they may never see each other – that some gaps are too much to overcome – unless you’re at the hot springs.