Amanda Knox is furious about "Stillwater," and I don't blame her. Writer/director Tom McCarthy clearly used her story as a jumping off point for "Stillwater," which heavily involves an American student incarcerated in a European prison for the crime of murdering a fellow student. Some of the details shared between the two stories are a little too close for comfort. However, "Stillwater" notably is not about the Amanda Knox stand-in, Allison Baker (Abigail Breslin). It's about her father, Bill (Matt Damon), a troubled blue collar worker from Stillwater, Oklahoma, who travels to Marseilles, France to try and do right by his daughter after a lifetime of bad choices and bad behavior. It's also, more broadly, about the uneasy relationship that exists between America and the rest of the world in the aftermath of the Trump presidency.
McCarthy's been awfully hit-or-miss over the past few years, and "Stillwater" is no different. The first two thirds of the film, where Bill tries to investigate Allison's claims of innocence, and manages to build a pleasant little life for himself with single mother Virginie (Camille Cottin) and her young daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), are very low key and satisfying. McCarthy does a great job of dramatizing the culture clash experienced by Bill, the resentments felt by many of the people he meets, and how characters are able to overcome this - to an extent. The final third, however, veers into crime thriller territory and pushes the bounds of plausibility a little too far for my tastes. However, the ending is a very good one, leaving the viewer with a lot of uncomfortable questions to chew over.
I like the way that the narrative is a total inversion of the usual "stranger in a strange land" stories about American exceptionalism and genre stories featuring self-righteous investigators who stubbornly prevail against all odds. Bill's efforts to clear his daughter's name have a serious cost, both for himself personally and for those close to him. The film does not let him get away with avoiding the implications of his privilege or the consequences of playing by his own rules. The fact that the film treats his stubborn faith in his own judgment as a defect instead of a strength is very interesting. Virginie is also a character with a lot to unpack, an artsy liberal who never hesitates to call out Bill for his failings, but also has some of her own biases and faults on display.
Matt Damon said some unfortunate things in the process of trying to promote this film. They're inevitably going to overshadow his work here, which is very good, and a little out of the bounds of his usual screen persona. In "Stillwater," he's playing a little older and a little sadder as a midwestern everyman, with scarcely any of his movie star charisma in the mix. He frequently looks lost and subdued as he deals with the French legal system, and has to depend on the kindness and patience of anyone who speaks English. It's almost a shock to see him in such a different context, when you remember that the first "Bourne Identity" film started off the coast of Marseilles. On the other hand, this is the first time in a long while that I've felt he's credibly disappeared into any character.
McCarthy's filmmaking is firmly grounded in realism throughout, slow-paced but always absorbing. His films have always been at their best in more intimate settings, and "Stillwater" offers plenty of these - Virginie's apartment, a rundown hotel, and the bleak prison visiting room where Bill meets with Allison. "Stillwater" feels closest to "The Visitor," which also features a man trying to navigate a labyrinthine bureaucracy, and who connects to some unlikely new friends. However, "Stillwater" isn't nearly as simple and straightforward in its morality, and sometimes even comes across as a repudiation of the optimistic attitudes of the previous film.
"Stillwater" has so much baggage that I don't know if I can recommend the film outright. It certainly has some considerable flaws, and some approaches to the material that make me uncomfortable. On the other hand, it is so heartening to see Tom McCarthy tackling this subject matter head-on, and making a difficult film that is unusually timely and unsettling. It offers a different POV, one that I find valuable and worth consideration, especially as it urges its viewers to do some self-examination and soul searching.
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