This is a Festival review of Prince Avalanche (2013)
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24 September
This is a Festival review of Prince Avalanche (2013)
I think that I have even seen this actor, Paul Rudd, play this type of character before, quite apart from knowing what some call a trope, I a formula, of a judgemental man who is so because he believes that he always does things properly, right, coupled with a foil who is seen as sloppy, ignorant (because, in Alvin’s repeated words, Lance does not know how to tie a knot, gut a fish).
That does not matter in itself, as, of course, there is nothing really new under the sun, but it does tend to give Prince Avalanche (2013) the feel not of a film, but of an extended edition of a t.v. comedy series, unlike, say, that classic The Odd Couple (1968) : it felt harder to stay with these two and feel for what happens, where and when they are, and believe that it was not a humorous set-up, where this team of two is forever painting lines on the road as the back-drop to this week’s wacky adventures.
Not really fair to make comparison with Lemmon and Matthau, but they are so good at making things seem cinematically true (as are Newman and Cruise), whereas the genuine chemistry between Emile Hirsch (as Lance) and Rudd reaches a plateau at a lower level, short of a feature where we can invest in them : when they go wild and booze, it is clear that their antics could be funny, although I was not in the mood for them, but one did not really feel that they had broken free – or through.
It is almost par for the course that there is a tinge of a mental-health issue – Alvin has to drop into the conversation that he has some prescription medications with him (as I guess, living in proximity, the inquisitive Lance would know anyway), but is managing to do without them – but nothing much is made of it. More is in Alvin’s character-type, than in any (psychiatric or) psychological origin, and that is maybe where everything seems forced, for Lance would have seen countless programmes there is a character with an up-tight superciliousness, so common is its portrayal :
It effectively knocks the stuffing out of any confrontation or threat between Lance and Alvin that one should feel that it is familiar from past viewing, just as it does that they settle their differences over drink and agree to party at the weekend. The quirky touches (the truck-driver, the woman looking through the burnt remains, the possibly other woman in the truck) do not, whatever else they do, add to creating a sense of being isolated in a place of prior devastation, and it does not help that one spot where the road furniture is being renewed appears to recur, as if different enough to pass off as new, rather than finding locations that were distinct.
It is good that we see Alvin solitarily do his thing for the first weekend (the film takes us from the preceding week to the eve of the second weekend), and that we only ever hear narrated (extracted by cross-examination ?) what Lance did in the town – in hindsight, it stresses to us that Alvin was really pleasing himself by doing this job, rather than sending money home, because, although it is unclear where ‘home’ exactly is, he could have gone into town with Lance (and, if necessary, on from there), not just sprawled extravagantly on his hammock and the like, as if convincing himself that he likes the outdoors so much.
This film could have, in more ways than one, explored territory, and one of the best shots is saved for last, after Lance and Alvin have driven off from their base and we see other signs of life than the truck-driver : some children playing on a little corner of land, and the vehicle going past, then coming back into shot behind it. Not enough to give a message, or to cement the unlikely feeling that the two men have found very much common ground.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
