Film / Reviews
Slow West
Slow West (15)
UK/New Zealand 2015 83 mins Dir: John Maclean Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Rory McCann, Caren Pistorius
Who’d have predicted that a bloke from a minor Scottish indie act would go on to write and direct a lean, confident, fatalistic western that earns favourable comparison with The Homesman and the Coens’ take on True Grit? Sure, former Beta Band keyboard player John Maclean’s well cast, superbly shot, 83 minute odd couple Old West bromance (filmed on location in Middle-earth, aka New Zealand, obviously) breaks no new ground, but it is an exquisitely crafted, enthralling prairie ride leading to an impressively tense climax.
Narrating ne’er-do-well Silas Selleck (Fassbender) is quick to recognise that naïve, lovelorn, well-bred 16-year-old Scottish immigrant Jay Cavendish (Smit-McPhee) is “a jackrabbit in a den of wolves” who’s unlikely to survive long in a land teeming with desperados. Ill-prepared Jay has travelled across the Atlantic to seek his beloved Rose Ross (Pistorius), who fled with her father after an ‘accident’ which is eventually revealed in flashback. So why would taciturn, cynical old Silas adopt the romantic greenhorn and protect him from harm? Well, it’s revealed fairly early on that Jay is possibly the only person in late 19th century Colorado who hasn’t seen all the wanted posters offering a $2,000 reward for the capture of Rose and her pa, dead or alive. Such a bounty “entices a certain breed of undesirable”, as Silas puts it, and before long all manner of varmints are crawling out of the woodwork in the hope that unwitting Jay will be their ticket to these riches.
Just as Tommy Lee Jones did with The Homesman, Maclean effectively de-romanticises frontier life, portraying it as a patchwork of desperate, starving, mostly European immigrants preyed upon by outlaws. The developing central bond between skinny, runtish, idealistic Jay and ruthless survivor Silas – “a falling angel and a rising devil” as another character observes – could easily have been cheesy and unconvincing, but the performances by Smit-McPhee, who’s come a long way since The Road, and reliable Fassbender make these characters rounded and believable. Audaciously, Maclean’s brisk film also finds room for some picaresque digressions and boasts a sly, dry sense of humour. Watch out for the unfortunate tree feller and the ‘salt in wounds’ visual gag.
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