American Folk

If you want to walk into a film knowing very little, this may be the review to convince you to go. For people who are over twenty years old, this may evoke memories of where you were when. Periodically there are times when most United States citizens became more civil, more caring, and more compassionate.

If you were raised enjoying the sound of a Gibson guitar, harmonies, and songs you knew the words to, this will resonate on so many levels. If not, this movie is a sweet introduction of ballads and timeless tunes. The supporting characters are vibrant and equally well acted.

If you are not particularly partial to a a tidy romantic comedy, all the better.

Most of this movie was as if they'd designed something specifically for what I'd want to see. The visuals were excellent. Whoever put in the work to make each scene perfect was deserves more money than they got. It's as if nothing was out of place, no car going down the highway, no item in a motel room, no piece of clothing, everything was masterfully curated. The visuals were excellent. The music also was incredibly good. They really put the time in to curating the look and sound of the movie, and they are by far it's strongest points. The story line was good, definitely interesting, a good road movie. There was a bit of an unnecessary subplot part way through which was designed to resolve a financial issue for the characters, but seemed like a way to give the movie credit for social commentary ("Gary, I just got a great idea, and it lets us get credit for taking on politics, war, and sexuality all at once!"), and the ending left a little something to be desired in the way of resolution. With a solid ending, it would have been more a 9.5, as it is, it's about an 8.5. It was worth the watch for the style and the music if nothing else.

For me, the problem was story. The whole 9/11 angle seemed to muck things up far more than advance.

I'm not one of the 'it was x years ago, so stop talking about it' crowd. Lost a family member that day, as it were.

But in the ensuing years, I now live near the widower of that family member (reminder: lots of firefighters are women), and we both agreed this was enough of a stretch to make those people sound pretty rational.

Recorded his words for accuracy: "If you take 9/11 away, it's probably about the same story. Good story. Just didn't like that they used the towers like that. People only got real riled in the dinner part and that's not how it was back then. You {this writer} were only in college, but I know you remember how people popped off all the time right after."

In short, 9/11 seems more a convenient linchpin than a properly explored central theme.

That said, the direction resulted in some excellent on-screen chemistry from the leads - which I barely believe wasn't there already. Also a surprising number of beautifully shot scenes with actors present - infinitely harder than without them. And despite my thematic disagreements, some tight writing.

Film gets a 5 from me, but might have been a 7 if personal circumstance didn't prevent an objective view of the subject matter.

Scoring as the latter because: won't hurt your rating on account of personal history, and hopefully a higher rating gets this film more viewings, especially from those of us connected to the event, that it might challenge us to think differently.