“The Red Road” (2014) Season 1, Episode 1 “Arise My Love, Shake Off This Dream”
The other fully homegrown show from SundanceTV (besides “Rectify”) is one that hasn’t really registered on our radar, but the recent news that it’s been picked up for a second six-episode season indicates that despite the apparent lack of buzz, it has found an audience. Gray’s involvement was limited to making his TV debut with the first episode, but if we were curious to see how his trademark understated intelligence would translate to the small screen, we were disappointed — it feels largely anonymous, and the slow-burn nature of his careful brand of filmmaking is diminished by some resolutely small-screen casting and a generic premise. What results is a perfectly decent and solidly made series opener that establishes a fairly large cast and their complex network of relationships clearly, but it’s not one that feels particularly urgent, and with recent high-water marks “True Detective” and “Top Of The Lake” setting such a high bar, “The Red Road” seems somewhat uninspired by comparison. Set in the fictional small town of Walpole, New Jersey, which is marked by ongoing tension between the local white residents and the Native American population, the show begins with cop Harold Jensen (a bland Martin Henderson) investigating the disappearance of an NYU student. His unstable ex-alcoholic wife Jean (the reliably great Julianne Nicholson, underserved here by having to pretty much play batshit from the get-go) is fretting over their daughter Rachel’s involvement with a local “Indian” boy, Junior, who himself is drawn into the orbit of ex-con Phillip Kopus (a glowery Jason Momoa), a shady drug-dealer type who may or may not have been responsible for Jean’s brother’s death some years before. If we can feel Gray’s influence anywhere, it’s in the fact that the family dynamic of the Jensen household feels like the most compelling element of the show at this early point, and he gets some nice performances on the fringes, especially from the younger cast members. Still, overall the episode has to be counted as a minor sidestep in the director’s career, and given that we’re in the middle of what we’re constantly told is the new Golden Age of television, it seems something of a shame that Gray’s first foray into the medium was with something so, well, ordinary. [C]
“The Lost City Of Z” (2017)
The most unconventional James Gray picture just so happens to be the director’s most ambitious project to date. Percolating in development for over six years, “The Lost City Of Z” is based on David Grann’s novel of the same name and follows the true story of soldier-turned-explorer Percival Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) during the dawn of the 20th century, when mapping out the borders of countries was still a vocation. Desperate to absolve his family name of ill-repute, Fawcett leaves his pregnant wife Nina (Sienna Miller) and his young son, and goes on a mission deep inside the jungles of Bolivia. Accompanied by a small posse, one of whom is Corporal Henry Costin (a hardly recognizable and never-better Robert Pattinson), Fawcett quickly gets the kind of jungle fever we’ve seen in past masterpieces like “Aguirre, The Wrath Of God” and “Apocalypse Now” (both clear inspirations for Gray here) and becomes obsessed with finding the eponymous city. ‘Z’ is everything that all previous Gray films are, though not in terms of scale, production, casting and source of origin. But a line that Fawcett utters, in the film’s twilight moments, which turns out to be his ultimate raison d’être, ties it all together and makes it indisputably Gray. Of course, the film’s butter-smooth transitions, perfectly timed montages, and unabashedly classicist feel still has the director’s fingerprints all over it. Hunnam has the dodgiest British accent for an actor who comes from Newcastle (and some will pine for what might have been if the original choice for Fawcett, Benedict Cumberbatch, panned out) but he is impressive in the way he sinks his teeth into such a physically demanding role and doesn’t take away (too much) from the film’s immersive nature. Like the passages of time that Gray conveys so tremendously well in the film, “The Lost City Of Z” will have to wade through the years to be properly digested and placed alongside Gray’s best work. For now, this visionary epic about the maddening balance of obsession and obligation is still a bit blurred by depthless dialogue and exhausting running time — and yet, there is something underneath its skin that keeps us locked in until the curtains close. Another one of Gray’s jaw-dropping reflection-shots (akin to the final shot of “The Immigrant”) ends the film, its grandiose themes and memorable characters safely nestling themselves into our headspace. Gray has entered the zone of big-scale pictures, and as ardent fans of his work, we are feverish with anticipation for what’s coming next. [B]
“Ad Astra” (2019)
Polarizing to some, thanks to a solemn, old-school voiceover, Gray’s thoughtful, meditative to the stars drama is still a riveting work, blending the big spectacle of space, awe and wonder, and of course, adding a deeply personal element of family to tie it all together. Also, a kind of loose remake of Francis Ford Coppola‘s “Apocalypse Now“—they follow the same structure, except for Martin Sheen going up the river to find the enigmatic Marlon Brando, it’s Brad Pitt, traveling to Neptune to find his long lost father. So, in many ways, it’s a guy with dad issues film, except for its an astronaut on a secret space mission who has to travel to the opposite ends of the galaxy to finally confront his father, his past and the demons inside him. In this sense, it’s classic James Gray: using the trojan horse of genre—the outer space adventure film—and marrying it to the very simple idea of a man, who simply cannot make any connections to many people, including his wife, due to the unfinished business he has with his demanding father, who went missing on a space expedition in his teens. Aesthetically, “Ad Astra” is gorgeous, incredibly visually dazzling thanks to the cinematography of Hoyte Van Hoytema and a moody score by Max Richter. Gray’s film also unpacks much about American ideas of masculinity, toxic or otherwise, exceptionlism and the perhaps outdated notion that American greatness lay in its daringness to explore the cosmos. Dividing or not, for fans of James Gray’s work, “Ad Astra” is a classic and profound work of emotion and wonder. [B+] – Rodrigo Perez
Over the years, Gray has had a few projects that just didn’t come together. “The Gray Man” was a thriller that had Brad Pitt attached to star, but it fell apart, and in August 2015, Warner Bros. tapped Gray to write and direct “White Devil,” a film based on the life of John Willis. We spoke to him about it around the time of “The Immigrant,” but it hasn’t really been heard from since. The filmmaker also “co-wrote” the screenplay for Guillaume Canet‘s 2013 film “Blood Ties,” but in his humble view, he just helped touch up some dialogue, but it might just be the ever-self-effacing filmmaker just being modest.
It took some seven-odd years for “The Lost City Of Z” to hit screens and at many points, Gray had totally given up on it. Pitt was supposed to star in an early iteration, then Benedict Cumberbatch, but through Pitt’s Plan B company, the film finally was finished in 2016. What’s next is going back to his New York roots with “Armageddon Time,” a coming-of-age story set within the privileged world of the Queens private school system and the backdrop of 1980s real estate developer Donald Trump brewing in the background. — with Rodrigo Perez