|
 Once
a hippie always a hippie, I suppose, but was ever a hippie quite as
dashing or well-kept as Robert Redford? The ultimate All-American
romantic leading man may have reached the pinnacle of stardom, but he
never let it get in the way of his hopeful vision as to the way things
should be; whether supporting the arts and independent filmmakers with
his Sundance Film Festival, or choosing films with strong
socio-political messages, like The Candidate or All The President’s
Men. In The Company You Keep, director/star Redford mixes the idealism
of the 1960s’ Flower Children with the frustrations and radicalism that
followed in their wake and throws in a word to two for the journalists
of today.
Thirty
years after being involved in an act of political terrorism, Sharon
Solarz has finally decided to do the right thing. Living perfectly
successfully as a wife and mother in the middle of nowhere, USA, she
cannot forget her role in a bank robbery committed by the radical
Weather Underground that resulted in the death of a security guard, and
so Solarz gives up to FBI. Her conscience purge will set off a long
chain of events which will affect both the innocent and guilty. One
person touched by Solarz‘s surrender is Jim Grant, who, like Solarz, hid
in plain sight, living as a small town lawyer and single dad to his very
young daughter. An ambitious local journalist is intrigued by the
arrest nearly forty years in the making and digs deeper to find the root
of the story. It isn’t long before the tenacious Ben Shepard has pieced
together a whole underpinning to the tale that implicates several of
Solarz‘s associates, including Grant, who, unlike his old running buddy,
wasn’t quite ready to have his world upended in a single day. The FBI
and the persistent journo pursue Grant, each for their own reasons,
while he uses an array of ninja-like evasive manoeuvres and taps old but
strong connections in the quest to clear his name. Unfortunately, some
of the rebels’ old dogmas haven’t faded in their golden years and
convincing some of those comrades to give themselves up for what they
believed were patriotic actions is a more difficult task than Grant
supposed. Even old lovers with long, complicated histories might not be
swayed, leaving Grant in the path of the FBI.
There
are several notable qualities about The Company You Keep, the most
refreshing being the patent idealism that permeates the piece. The
heart of the activism that moved so many to protest in the sixties and
seventies for their goal of building a better country is very present
here and seems to be one of the motivating factors to Robert Redford’s
involvement. The story, based around the actions of the Weather
Underground is surely a subject that most of the audience born long
after those events will have no clue, but is interesting, nonetheless.
The second and greatest feature of the film is its older cast. Besides
the monolithic Redford, there’s an amazing ensemble of some of cinema’s
finest actors, Brendan Gleeson, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Susan
Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Sam Elliott and the luminous Julie Christie in
small but tantalising roles that make us long for more of their screen
time. At fifty-eight, the second youngest supporting star is Brendan
Gleeson (Tucci is fifty-two) is ten years Sam Elliott’s junior
and twenty years younger than Redford. Their interactions sizzle and
put a lot of the juice into the movie’s engine. By comparison, the
movie spends an unfortunate amount of time exploring the means and
motivations of the young journalist, played by Shia LaBeouf. Shepard
spends so much time as a nippy Chihuahua who won’t leave Jim Grant
alone, or like a pesky mosquito around the ears of anyone he’s trying to
get a story from; using weak threats and intimidation, it’s hard to root
for the twerpy character even when he has his all-too-predictable moral
epiphany. The Company You Keep made me question (once again)
whether LaBeouf can actually play anything other than the cocky,
unkempt, bratty frat boy (Who unfathomably always gets the girl)
he seems to be repeating over and over in every film. I increasingly am
convinced that his feature debut, Holes, at age seventeen is still his
best performance. The terrifically wide age gap between Redford and his
eleven-year-old daughter, played by Jackie Evancho, is distracting,
while the casting of Brit Marling as another person in Grant‘s life is
easily at least ten years too young. The aforementioned senior ensemble
is the perfect antidote to LaBeouf’s hyperactive, fake swagger and the
other odd notes in the film and keeps the project on a relatively even -
if unsurprising - keel.
It’s
refreshing to see an artist who even in his sunset years has not given
up the idealism that has clearly inspired him. Robert Redford’s beliefs
in good journalism and good people working toward good government is at
the forefront of The Company You Keep, but it’s the story of decades-old
friendships and trust portrayed by its assortment of some of the movies’
finest actors that really makes it worth watching.
~The
Lady Miz Diva
April
5th, 2013
Bonus feature: We had the pleasure of attending the press conference for
The Company
You Keep
and LMD
had a chance to pose a question to superstar
Robert Redford.
No April Foolin’.
Dig
it!
The
Lady Miz Diva: Mr. Redford, this is not the first time you’ve dealt with
the subject of journalism in your career, but The Company You Keep
arrives at an interesting time in the media, when our news either seems
to lean far left or far right, or follow some agenda. Was that part of
what drew you to tell this story at this particular time?
Robert Redford: Well, it’s tricky business when an artist tries to
mess around with journalists. I’ve done that before. Basically, I was
protected by a story that was written by somebody else, and I was just
documenting that. But it’s tricky because I don’t know that the media’s
comfortable being criticised by people that are not in their own world.
I don’t know, I might be wrong, but that’s just sort of a hunch. So,
in other words, you have to be careful. On the other hand, because I
have such a keen interest in the media, because I think it plays such an
important role in our society; I’m very concerned if it’s ever
threatened in any way. And if it is threatened, I would like to know
how and what and maybe that’s a story. So I think that the internet has
so drastically altered the landscape of journalism because now you’ve
got so much information, sometimes I think there’s sometimes too much
information and how do you find the truth? Where does a public citizen
find the truth when so much is coming at them? As you said, you have
the far right and far left hammering stuff; much of it is lying on both
ends, so if the public really just gets fed up and turns away, then I
think there’s real danger. So I’m really curious about the state of
journalism; where it is right now and what’s going on. So in terms of
this film, I really saw the Shia character - I guess to me, there was a
hint of a story that I’ve always loved: The two stories that I loved as
a kid were the Phantom of the Opera, cos I always wanted to play that
part, and Les Miserables. I always thought from the time I was a little
kid that was one of the great stories. So I saw similarities in that
Shia’s character is the Inspector Javert in Les Miserables and that I am
Jean Valjean; in a sense that I go to prison for something I thought is
wrong. I escape. I take on a new identity to escape prison time. I
live a clean life. I have a daughter, the daughter means everything to
me - that’s Jackie. I had to give up another daughter before she meant
too much to me to give up - that’s Brit - that was painful. I don’t
want to make that mistake again, so here it is; this means everything to
me. And yet there’s someone on my tail that might expose me in a way
that makes it impossible for me to have the true love of my daughter and
have a clean, clear life. So, that was the mix, the complexity that
sparked me to make this film.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
April
1st, 2013
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com
|
