Undertow

 

Undertow 2004

• Director: David Gordon Green
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Jamie Bell, Josh Lucas, Dermot Mulroney, Devon Alan, Kristen Stewart,  Eddie Rouse, Patrice Johnson, Shirley Appleby
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Jamie Bell –  Rocketman, Skin, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Fantastic Four, Filth, Snowpiercer, Jane Eyre, The Eagle, Defiance, Jumper, Hallam Foe, King Kong, The Chumscrubber, Dear Wendy, Billy Elliot
• Josh Lucas – The Lincoln Lawyer, A Beautiful Mind, American Psycho
• Dermot Mulroney – The Mountain Between Us, Burn After Reading, Jolene, I Still See You, About Schmidt
• Kristen Stewart – Clouds over Sils Maria, The Runaways, Welcome to the Rileys, Twilight, Jumper, Into the Wild
• Why? Jamie Bell
• Seen: Once before. Now 8 August 2023      

       Chris (Bell) lives with his widowed father John (Muloney) and little brother Tim (Alan) on a small isolated pig farm in the American South. John is fed up with Chris, who’s always in trouble with the police or the neighbours. Tim suffers an anxiety disorder.

       John’s brother Deel (Lucas) shows up having been released from prison. The brothers have old festering conflicts and things go badly.

       It’s a grim and violent psychological family drama that has me hooked from the beginning. Made four years after Billy Elliot, it’s proof of what a versatile and skilled actor young Jamie Bell already is. 

4* of 5