Stillwater

Matt Damon plays a man on a path of redemption in Tom McCarthy’s gut-wrenching character study.

Doing the right thing: Matt Damon as Bill Baker

Still waters run deep. In many respects, Bill Baker is an ordinary American: deeply religious, hard-working, reticent, polite, respectful of others. But Bill’s wife has committed suicide, his daughter is in prison for murder and Bill himself has a police record. He admits he is a “dumb ass”. His daughter calls him a “fuck-up.” But all that is about to change…

Tom McCarthy previously wrote and directed The Station Agent, The Visitor and the Oscar-winning Spotlight. He makes thoughtful, grown-up films about contemporary America and it’s something of a shock to see a film about real people on the big screen: since the lifting of restrictions in the UK, Stillwater has been released wide and should be showing at a multiplex near you.

Matt Damon, bearded and overweight, plays Bill Baker, a construction worker pressed for employment and currently cleaning up after the devastation left by a tornado near the town of Stillwater, Oklahoma. In the background, a television talks of “real people” – something about reality TV – and Damon himself has never seemed more real, more down-to-earth. We never forget that it’s Matt Damon holding centre stage, but his character is credible: self-sacrificing, foolhardy and vulnerable. Then, when Baker flies to Marseille to see his daughter (Abigail Breslin) behind bars, Damon and McCarthy begin to peel off the layers.

Stillwater is essentially a character study, but it’s also a big-screen drama – and Marseille looks majestic and wonderful. However, Bill Baker is not the only character in this gut-wrenching essay on justice and the American way. At times, one has to remember that Tom McCarthy is American (he was born in New Jersey). Baker himself is adopted by a French woman, Virginie, who is something of a Good Samaritan; but when she turns on him with the words, “you sound very American right now,” the line stings like a slap. Choked with regret and disappointment, Baker is trying to do good by the people he loves and he sees hope in his friendship with Virginie (Camille Cottin, from Call My Agent!) a bilingual actress with a young daughter, Maya (the luminous Lilou Siauvaud).

There’s nothing more emotive than watching a well-meaning chump attempting to right the wrongs in his life, even as the same old doors keep slamming in his face. But Baker is nothing if not single-minded and resilient – what else has he got to lose?

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin, Lilou Siauvaud, Deanna Dunagan, Moussa Maaskri, Anne Le Ny, Idir Azougli, William Nadylam.

Dir Tom McCarthy, Pro Steve Golin, Tom McCarthy, Jonathan King and Liza Chasin, Screenplay Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré, Ph Masanobu Takayanagi, Pro Des Philip Messina, Ed Tom McArdle, Music Mychael Danna, Costumes Karen Muller Serreau, Dialect coach Tanya Blumstein.

Participant/DreamWorks Pictures/Slow Pony/Anonymous Content/3dot Productions/Supernatural Pictures-Entertainment One.
139 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 6 August 2021. Cert. 15.