‘The Rover’ Review
…with no particular place to go…
“Australia. 10 Years After The Collapse”.
These words over a black screen are the only background and setting we are given at the beginning of the David Michôd’s follow-up to his award-winning ‘Animal Kingdom’ (2010). For a few decades now, Australia has been a staple in the science fiction community as a desolate and dangerous wasteland, void of any form of civil society and government. Anarchy and chaos has fueled action films like the ‘Mad Max’ trilogy, but ‘The Rover’ is fueled by a smaller stature of disorder—one man on his quest across part of the former Australia to get back the only thing he has left in the world, a world on its last nerve. This is truly a minimalist filmmaker’s take on anarchy and the fall of society.
We are introduced to Guy Pearce’s anti-hero through the use of a long close-up shot. Deep in thought, Eric (as we learn his name later) is wandering day to day across the country with no particular place to go. Through Michôd’s tight direction and his story’s overall look and feel, we’re under the impression that this has been what life has been like for Eric and the rest of society, drifting from one place to the next for almost a decade. But when I use “society” I am not limiting it to the land down under, certainly not. Vagabonds from all over the globe are living in Australia. Asian and American influence can been seen in the form of currency and culture, expanding on Michôd’s theory that this collapse has effected many nations in the world.
What sets the story in motion, however, is an apparent robbery gone wrong. Although, in world that is a shell of its former self, I don’t know how something could possibly end up in that state, but that’s neither here nor there. When one of the four burglars is left for dead at the scene of the crime, a shouting match between his brother and another member of the quartet ensues, causing an accident next to Eric’s parked car. The three thieves, unable to move their own vehicle, steal Eric’s. A resourceful man, Eric is able to free their car and catch up to his, threatening the assailants to give it back. After being sucker punched and left at the side of the road, a man with nothing to lose drives to the closest town to find a gun and in-turn meets the abandoned robber, a young and dim-witted southern American (as in “roll-tide” kind of American) named Rey, played by Robert Pattinson.
The story from this point on is simple: Eric needs Rey to find his car, Rey needs Eric because Rey is a dependent simpleton who cannot survive on his own without someone looking out for him. The unlikely pair trek across the barren land for a good portion of the remainder of the movie and feature some of the best “anti-chemistry” a story has ever needed.
As previously stated, the look and feel of this world is incredible. The direction is tight when it needs to be and also contains wide-scope shots that would make David Lean and John Ford proud. For a film to be set in one of the sunniest and brightly-lit places on Earth, the setting is always a dark and haunting place, a grim reminder of how things have evolved from what they once were. “We float through the space between life and death” as it is put, the director creates a quasi-purgatory, where the characters most certainly know that they aren’t dead and in hell, but assume the difference has to be minimal.
While I’ve been hearing quite a bit of criticism for its narrative, I applaud Michôd and Joel Edgarton’s story, as well as, Michôd’s screenplay. It may sound a bit cliché, but sometimes pictures have more to say than words, and at a period in time where the summer blockbuster is released year round, it is a pleasant surprise to have those two aspects of a script working together to produce emotion in a story. Each line of dialogue is embraced by its two leads and made their own, giving each character the fullest extent of exhaustion, genuineness, and fear, needed for a situation of this kind.
Michôd is the conductor of this brooding symphony, but the real standouts are Pearce and Pattinson. The actor’s chemistry, or “anti-chemistry” that I previously mentioned, is as intense as it is awkward. Pearce’s portrayal as a man on the brink with nothing left to live for or lose is entirely too believable and is frightening at times. While Pearce’s performance is no real surprise, Pattinson steals the show, proving that he is an actual actor and not the pretty boy that the awful ‘Twilight’ adaptations have made him out to be. Pattinson stammers and twitches as Rey, a character whose thought process is a little bit slower than your average young man, but is still able to convey his feelings through simple sentences and memories. I can’t speak highly enough about the film’s watchability because of these two performances, which leads one to question whether or not the characters are bonding.
Some moviegoers may crave more from an experience like ‘The Rover’, that’s understandable. Though it may not contain as much interesting dialogue or action, it is hard to deny that the film is so darkly entertaining, you have to stick around to find out what was so damn important to a shell of a man—this little wink may even bring a tear to your eye. ‘The Rover’ is a sci-fi tale that is as much a revenge-fueled western as it is a commentary on our society in terms of our current fiscal, political and ecological burdens. Of course, the most haunting thing Michôd’s film leaves you with is the fear of being in this type of world: a world where the morality we face in harsh situations could mean the difference between life and death, living in a hell or dying in one, a hesitation or a pulled trigger.
‘The Rover’ 4/5
Dir. David Michôd. Starring: Guy Pearce & Robert Pattinson
