Each movie has an audience. No matter how bad/weird/abstract a movie is there will be people who will love it and who will watch it endlessly. Earlier this year I reviewed Robert Redford’s All Is Lost, a movie which I really could not appreciate, but I know it will receive a lot of praise as well. I feel Prince Avalanche is also one of those movies. It is not something I was able to enjoy, but there is definitely an audience for it.
The plot according to IMDB is: “Two highway road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.” That to me is a very accurate description of the movie and not much more than that happens in the movie. Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch are those two highway road workers. They are in a paint crew who has to put the lines on a desolated road. They camp in the woods when they are done with work and have a lot of time to kill. Their personalities differ greatly. Hirsch’s Lance is still young and has a strong need to be around other people and party. Rudd’s Alvin is a man who thinks he knows what he wants. He is learning German for a trip to Germany he wants to make and is focussed on his relationship.
The movie looks good and both actors do an excellent job in their roles, but as whole it felt extremely empty to me. I can enjoy small films looking at the interaction between people, but this moved extremely slow with not too much happening. It was like watching a painting you don’t feel anything for, sure it can be hypnotising to others but no matter how long you are going to put me in front of it, it will not change my opinion. Looking at the Rotten Tomatoes scores it is clear there are a lot of people who are seeing the beauty of it, but I am not one of them.
Didn’t hate this film, but didn’t like it that much. There were moments I found myself getting into, but you’re dead right – this film is for a group of audiences, but I’m not one of them either.
Also, about a quarter of the way into the film I realised who Emile Hirsch was reminding me of – Jack Black. After that moment, I couldn’t unsee it.
Not too many people seem to have seen this one. As is clear from my review I didn’t like it at all.
Yeah, you are right with your comment about Jack Black, also think that they are really similar…he has gained a bit of weight it seems since the last time I saw him in a film.