by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
Matt Damon playing a character only slightly toned down from his Deadpool 2 cameo? I’m in.
Seriously though, if you’ve seen a trailer for Stillwater, it would be easy to assume Damon’s character is playing nothing more than the stereotypical American abroad. In the role of an oil rig worker, he travels from Oklahoma to Marseille, France, to help his estranged daughter imprisoned for a murder she said she didn’t commit. The truth is more complex than that. He certainly has his stereotypical American abroad moments where he fails to comprehend the cultural nuances of Marseille as he looks to exonerate his daughter. However, as the film goes along, we get to see how he truly changes as a person in how he interacts on French soil by becoming more acclimated.
What plays a large role in that development is the relationship he cultivates with a French mother and daughter, played by Camille Cottin and Lilou Siauvaud respectively. You really buy in to the relationship Damon’s character develops with the family. In particular, the performance of Siauvaud is a revelation — in her first feature film, no less. The relationship that they build over time as the story progresses feels so genuine and both Damon and Siauvaud portray it beautifully.
Another aspect of the film that may be slightly misleading — at least if you go in with just the trailer and the description — is that the film does not take place in the immediate aftermath of the murder charges. When the film kicks off, Allison (Abigail Breslin) is four years through a nine-year sentence having already been convicted of the murder of her girlfriend. With her performance largely contained to brief scenes inside her visiting time meeting area, Breslin accomplishes quite a lot. It’s another role that requires a lot of complexity that’s handled well. With the relationship between Breslin and Damon being estranged, that certainly comes through, but it’s also clear they still care for each other. That can be a tough balance, but it works.
Performances aside, it’s a crime thriller. As such, the buy-in to the overall investigation and unraveling of what happened that night needs to be able to keep the audience’s attention. Personally, while I enjoyed the experience from the get-go, I didn’t quite realize how invested I was into the film until it was further along. Because of the aforementioned character work that is so well done, I was hanging on every character choice. At points, I even had visible or audible reactions in my seat, a hand over the face here, a groan there. More importantly, nothing took me out. None of the story points felt antithetical to how characters have been presented to us.
With so many great performances and weaving a complicated story, director Tom McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for how well the overall film comes together. We, like Damon, have to navigate and be able to orient ourselves in an unfamiliar setting. There are time jumps. There’s character development that is crucial. The latter requires the film to take its time so we as an audience get invested, but I never felt bored. There’s a lot for the film to balance, but you never lose your bearings. Not to mention, the film is incredibly well shot, which just adds to the quality of the experience.
A quick note on something I only found out about after the fact (which is surprising, given the fact that the trailer showed at the majority of films I’ve seen in the last couple of months). This film is apparently loosely based on a real story. With an apparent emphasis on the loosely. I just say that to acknowledge while it might play a role in how some consume this movie, my obliviousness meant it in no way colored my own.
All told, it’s a gorgeous looking film with some top-notch performances from faces new and old alike. For fans of Damon or the mystery-thriller genre, Stillwater is worth diving into.
Grade: A-
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