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In his new film “Stillwater,” co-writer/director Tom McCarthy wanted to present the image of an American hero – and then turn it on its head. The film, now in theaters, stars Matt Damon as Bill Baker, a roughneck from the titular town in Oklahoma who travels to Marseille, France to visit his imprisoned daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin.) A stranger in a strange land where he doesn’t speak the language or truly understand the dynamics, Bill’s only company is a single mother (Camille Cottin) and her young daughter

McCarthy, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for “Spotlight,” a film he directed to a best picture win, worked with co-writers Marcus Hinchey, along with French writers Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré, who frequently collaborate with Jacques Audiard. The film premiered to a warm response – and a five-minute standing ovation — at the Cannes Film Festival last month. One person who...

One of the highlights of cinema’s glorious return to la Croisette this year was Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater. Released in the UK on the 6th of August, the film chronicles the journey of a stranger in a strange land, with Matt Damon’s American roughneck attempting to clear his daughter’s name. Along with Damon the film stars Abigail Brelsin, Camille Cottin, Ginifer Ree, Deanne Dunagan, Robert Peters, and Lilou Siauvaud.

Today we present interviews with Damon, Breslin, McCarthy and Cottin from Cannes, as they tell us why they were drawn to the story and how the cultural differences often makes for good drama. Lianne Peet conducts the interviews.

Plot:

Directed by Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), the film follows Bill (Matt Damon), an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin), in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit.

Stillwater Review — Stillwater (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Tom McCarthy, and starring Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin, Lilou Siauvaud, Deanna Dunagan, Idir Azougli, Anne Le Ny, Moussa Maaskri, Isabelle Tanakil, Naidra Ayadi, Pierre Piacentino, Jean-Marc Michelangeli and William Nadylam. Tom McCarthy’s new film, Stillwater, plays out similarly to his Oscar-winning film [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Stillwater (2021): Matt Damon Excels in a Mostly Conventional Drama...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on July 29th, 2021, reviewing the new film “Stillwater,” featuring Matt Damon. In theaters beginning July 30th.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Damon is a stern and silent Oklahoma oil rigger named Bill who has to travel to Marseille, France, to visit his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin), who is in prison for a murder against a college roommate she says she didn’t commit. Bill has to become a redneck Columbo to break the case, and stays in Marseille, rooming with a French actress (Camille Cottin) and her daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud). His American exceptionalism starts to break down while in France, and in learning about the culture starts to clear the case and his mind.

“Stillwater” opens in theaters beginning July 30th. Featuring Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin, Lilou Siauvaud and Deanna Dunagan. Written and directed by Tom McCarthy.

A central theme in Tom McCarthy’s film “Stillwater,” reaching theaters this weekend, is that of culture clash: Oklahoman Bill Baker (Matt Damon) in southern France, visiting his imprisoned daughter (Abigail Breslin) and becoming involved with a French theater actress (Camille Cottin).

That idea extended to the music, composed by Oscar winner Mychael Danna (“Life of Pi”). Danna, whose specialty has long been the authentic application of world-music sounds into film scores, was an obvious choice “because it takes place in Marseille, which is a kind of multi-cultural melting pot,” he says.

The challenge, however, was McCarthy’s direction that the music be “not too specific, culturally, but just the right amount of flavor — something you don’t notice, you just feel.” The intention, Danna says, was for the viewer to experience Marseille and its people “through Bill’s eyes.”

Baker’s middle-American roots suggested country flavors, so Danna assembled...

Stillwater Focus Features Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Tom McCarthy Writer: Tom McCarthy, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré, Marcus Hinchey Cast: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin, Deanna Dunagan, Lilou Siauvaud Screened at: Rodeo Screening Room, LA, 7/27/21 Opens: July 30th, 2021 The case of Amanda Knox, an American student arrested and imprisoned in […]

The post Stillwater Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

This review of “Stillwater” was first published after its premiere at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.

Four years after actor-writer-director Tom McCarthy rebounded from the dismal critical reception of “The Cobbler” to Oscar glory with “Spotlight,” he finally stepped back behind the camera, following up his acclaimed journalism drama with… “Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made,” a family comedy that premiered on Disney+ last year that you almost certainly didn’t see.

And for his follow-up to that film, the man with the least predictable career in Hollywood came up with “Stillwater,” a genre-agnostic semi-thriller that was greeted with cheers and applause at its well-received Cannes Film Festival premiere in early July.

Neatly mirroring its director’s style and signature, “Stillwater” is nigh impossible to pin down, taking the broad contours of a stoic-dad-who’ll-stop-at-nothing-to save-his-daughter thriller and subverting them, filling them with so much texture, humor and emotional attention that the...

The new drama, Stillwater, from Focus Features, is one of those seemingly off-putting films that initially feels as though it hasn’t got anything substantial to say, but there is something at work just beneath the surface of the film that lingers long after the last reel has run. This is a film that, if allowed to simmer, eventually rewards you with not only a fine performance from an excellent actor, but a thinking piece on the harm that the lack of communication can cause any two people in any given relationship or situation.

The film tells the saga of Bill (Matt Damon), an Oklahoma oil-rig worker travelling to Mareseille, France to visit his estranged daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), who is serving time in prison for a crime she claims not to have committed. Wanting desperately to gain his daughter’s trust and prove his worth to her, Bill relays...

A dramatic thriller directed by Academy Award® winner Tom McCarthy and starring Matt Damon, Stillwater follows an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.

From Focus Features, the film opens on July 30 and stars Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin and Camille Cottin.

Rated R

Enter to win a free pass (Good for 2) to the St. Louis Advanced Screening of Stillwater on Wednesday July 28 at 7pm.

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https://www.focusfeatures.com/stillwater/

Matt Damon (left) stars as “Bill” and Lilou Siauvaud (right) stars as “Maya” in director Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater,...

Matt Damon’s drama “Stillwater” is not at Cannes to capture prizes. Directed and co-written by “Spotlight” Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy, Damon plays an Oklahoma everyman who tries to free his daughter (Abigail Breslin) from a French prison with help from local single mom Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent”). Instead, Focus Features is using the festival to launch the accessible family drama out of competition as a marketing platform for its July 30 wide release. After all, Damon is a global movie star who can generate press coverage by tearing up at the gala world premiere. This movie with a working-class vibe played well at its gala premiere July 8.

Early reviews for “Stillwater” are solid. At a Friday press conference and later Master Class, Damon said though this was his fifth time at Cannes, it felt like his first. He was moved by the experience of returning to commune with strangers in a theater.

Matt Damon’s drama “Stillwater” is not at Cannes to capture prizes. Directed and co-written by “Spotlight” Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy, Damon plays an Oklahoma everyman who tries to free his daughter (Abigail Breslin) from a French prison with help from local single mom Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent”). Instead, Focus Features is using the festival to launch the accessible family drama out of competition as a marketing platform for its July 30 wide release. After all, Damon is a global movie star who can generate press coverage by tearing up at the gala world premiere. This movie with a working-class vibe played well at its gala premiere July 8.

Early reviews for “Stillwater” are solid. At a Friday press conference and later Master Class, Damon said though this was his fifth time at Cannes, it felt like his first. He was moved by the experience of returning to commune with strangers in a theater.

Matt Damon said he felt “a little overwhelmed” at yesterday’s Cannes premiere for his new film Stillwater.

Speaking alongside writer-director Tom McCarthy and co-stars Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin and Lilou Siauvaud during the film’s press conference, Damon reflected on what it was like to return to a packed cinema after a rough 18 months for the world.

“I was a little overwhelmed last night. I’m really glad we’re here this year. We’ll look back and remember launching the film out of Covid. To be in a room with 1,000 other people who are strangers but who are part of the same community because we love the same thing was such a great reminder of why we do this.”

In Stillwater, Damon plays an oil worker who travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit.

Matt Damon went deep into red state identity politics to build his character in Tom McCarthy’s Cannes premiere “Stillwater.”

To portray Oklahoma oil rig worker Bill Baker — a father who sacrifices everything to help free his daughter from a French prison, after she is convicted of murdering her roommate while studying abroad —— Damon spent an “absolutely critical” time doing research in the state, he said at a Friday press conference for the film.

One of the biggest laughs at the movie’s Thursday night premiere came when Damon’s character is asked by a French woman if he voted for Donald Trump. He did not, he responds, but only because a prior felony kept him from voting at all.

On Friday, Damon said Baker absolutely would’ve supported Trump.

“These guys don’t apologize for who they are,” Damon said, referring affectionately to his character as a “roughneck.” The...

Matt Damon met the international press in Cannes Friday afternoon after bringing a welcome dose of Hollywood star power to the red carpet the night prior for the world premiere of Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater. Damon was joined by the director and his co-stars Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin and Lilou Siauvaud.

The actor took a pause during the press conference to shed a little light on the moment on Thursday when he visibly broke down into tears during the standing ovation for Stillwater in Cannes’ Grand Théâtre Lumière.

“I was a little overwhelmed last night, and I’m really glad that we’re here this ...

Matt Damon met the international press in Cannes Friday afternoon after bringing a welcome dose of Hollywood star power to the red carpet the night prior for the world premiere of Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater. Damon was joined by the director and his co-stars Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin and Lilou Siauvaud.

The actor took a pause during the press conference to shed a little light on the moment on Thursday when he visibly broke down into tears during the standing ovation for Stillwater in Cannes’ Grand Théâtre Lumière.

“I was a little overwhelmed last night, and I’m really glad that we’re here this ...

Americans are used to watching Americans save the day in movies. That’s the kind of hero Bill Baker wants to be for his daughter Allison — a young woman convicted of murdering her girlfriend while studying abroad — in “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy’s not-at-all-conventional crime thriller “Stillwater.” The setup will sound familiar to anyone who remembers the Amanda Knox case: Now halfway through a 10-year sentence, Allison has always maintained her innocence. After new evidence arises, she writes a letter to her lawyer asking for help. But she’s careful not to involve her dad directly. “I cannot trust him with this. He’s not capable,” she writes.

To a particular kind of man, words like that are a direct challenge. And when that man is played by Matt Damon, we expect him to save the day anyway. Maybe he does, but that’s not the reason McCarthy chose to tell this story.

that bakes a dad-on-a-mission thriller together with a heartwarming fish-out-of-water story and then a brutal crime drama before glazing the whole thing with a marvelously goateed Matt Damon, Tom McCarthy’s “Stillwater” is the kind of original Hollywood production that would make you say “they don’t make them like that anymore” if only they had ever made them quite this way in the first place. That it’s a French co-production surely accounts for a portion of the film’s structural oddness — several plot points feel lost in translation, even if the whole thing somehow manages to still make sense — but quirks of financing can only go so far to explain a 140-minute transatlantic saga that’s equal parts “Taken,” “Paddington,” and “Prisoners,” one after the other.

No movie with that particular genetic makeup is going to be all that subtle, and McCarthy — who co-wrote the script with Thomas Bidegain,...

In town for the world premiere of out-of-competition Cannes Film Festival entry Stillwater, star Matt Damon appeared moved by emotion during a near-five-minute standing ovation tonight. The drama, directed by Spotlight Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy, brought the assembled crowd to its feet in the Grand Théâtre Lumière as the lights came up on film’s team, and brought tears to Damon’s eyes.

Stillwater centers on Damon’s Bill Baker, an Oklahoma oil-rig roughneck with a shoddy past as a father who heads to Marseille, hellbent on freeing his daughter (Abigail Breslin), an exchange student imprisoned for murdering her girlfriend, a crime she says she didn’t commit. He’s the proverbial fish out of water who finds an ally in a local single mother (Camille Cottin) and her daughter (Lilou Siauvaud).

Given the film is largely set in Marseille, just about a two-hour drive from Cannes, the local crowd was...

A return to Cannes made Matt Damon misty. The 50-year-old actor swooped into the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday night with “Stillwater,” a Focus Features drama directed by “Spotlight’s” Tom McCarthy.

As the credits rolled, Damon started to tear up at the ecstatic cheers from the crowd. In the film, he plays a stoic Oklahoma construction worker whose daughter (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned for murder in France, after being convicted of killing her ex-girlfriend while studying abroad. As years and expensive lawyers add up (in a scenario reminiscent of the Amanda Knox case), Damon’s character Bill Baker works tirelessly to prove his child’s innocence and befriends a single mom (Camille Cottin) and her daughter (Lilou Siauvaud) along the way.

Matt Damon is brought to tears at the #Cannes2021 standing ovation for ‘Stillwater.’ pic.twitter.com/phpK2mOJT1

— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) July 8, 2021

Damon took his time entering the theater,...

Exclusive: Tomorrow night’s Cannes premiere of Stillwater marks the end of a long odyssey for co-writer/director Tom McCarthy, who put down the script almost a decade ago, and moved on to win an Oscar for co-writing and directing Best Picture winner Spotlight and get nominated for co-writing the Best Animated Film Oscar winner Up. Stillwater stars Matt Damon as an Oklahoma roughneck with a shoddy past as a father who heads to Marseille hellbent on freeing his daughter (Abigail Breslin), an exchange student imprisoned for murdering her girlfriend, a crime she says she didn’t commit. He’s the proverbial fish out of water who finds an ally in a local single mother (Camille Cottin) and her daughter (Lilou Siauvaud). A script that took its early shape and inspiration from the imprisonment and eventual acquittal of Amanda Knox, benefited from years in a drawer, the influence of French co-writers Thomas Bidegain & Noe Debre,...