Old Joy (2006)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Soon to be a father, Mark feels the pressure of domestic responsibility closing in, so he is more than happy to accept when his old friend Kurt proposes a camping trip in the Oregon wilderness. During their time together, the men come to grips with the changes in their lives and the effect on their relationship.
5 connections found
View:
5 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Old Joy to
It’s a story that might remind some of such films as Captain Fantastic and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, both curiously starring Viggo Mortensen, or perhaps Kelly Reichardt’s small dramas set in the American Northwest (Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy).
In films like Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, Reichardt presents the region as a place where life is tough and the people persist in a quiet, gentle way.
A party is held in the house, a man (Will Oldham, "Old Joy") philosophizing about humankind's quest for meaning in what we leave behind when we depart this earth and how we exist until we're lost to collective memory.
The film is a lot like the works of Kelly Reichardt—particularly her breakout feature Old Joy—in how characters guard their feelings and show tremors under the gentle, easygoing façade of the action.
Good One is like a little sister to Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, another fantastic film about the dynamics of two men’s friendship.
India Donaldson's minimalist, slow-burn feature debut reveals a sensibility that inevitably invites comparisons with the work of Kelly Reichardt, especially Old Joy.
Much of Good One plays like a cross between Kelly Reichardt and Noah Baumbach – with further crisscrossing between multiple modes of each filmmaker. There’s the modest, verdant-scenery male bonding of Reichardt’s Old Joy, plus the seething, stranded dynamic of Michelle Williams’ character in Meek’s Cutoff; similarly, the banter of a Baumbach comedy – the dialogue between Chris and Matt is often very funny – intersects with a lower-key version of Marriage Story tensions.
It’s been nearly two decades since Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy showed how the wilderness can be an open canvas to explore the breaking points of male friendship and reckoning with a midlife crisis. While those emotional quandaries are evergreen, it’s appropriate timing to bring an entirely new element to this conceit.
It’s a character in these films — like Kelly Reichardt does with her penetrating work; see First Cow , Old Joy , Wendy and Lucy .
Advertisement
Filmmakers Reichardt and Raymond, who collaborated on the eccentric 2006 character study Old Joy (also set in the Oregon forests) know the emotional landscape well — Wendy and Lucy is adapted from Raymond's short story "Train Choir."