Review: Get Low (B+)

All right, first of all, just to clear this up before you can make any jokes: no, the sweat does not drip down anybody's balls in Aaron Schneider's directoral debut Get Low. What we do get, however, is a lovely slice of modern American tall tale from a combination of respected veterans and new talents who clearly have a bright future. Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, a hermit who's lived alone in the hills of Tennessee for four decades with nothing known about him but the boogeyman-style urban (rural?) legends circulated in the nearest town.
So everyone's a little astonished and frightened when Felix walks into town one day and heads for the local funeral home, run by expatriate Chicagoan Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) and his assistant Buddy (Lucas Black). There, Felix, presenting them with a comically balled-up wad of money that he appears to carry everywhere, tells them what he wants: a funeral for himself that he'll be able to attend. Oh, and everyone who has a story to tell about him is invited. Buddy is a little confused, but Frank, feeling the sting of the Great Depression on business, is not turning down work from anyone. As they prepare for the funeral, Felix becomes reacquainted with a mysterious woman from his past (Sissy Spacek), and we inch ever-closer to learning what really kept him up in the hills for so long.
As a lot of people have already stated, Duvall is phenomenal and Oscar-worthy in this; his character is for the most part something entirely new, although it has echoes of his in Secondhand Lions, another old man with a past we only learn a little at a time. Without revealing too much, his final speech at the funeral will floor you; if they didn't already show acting clips at the Oscars, they would start based on this. Murray, playing a variation on the endearing-scoundrel type that comes to him with such ease, comes close to Duvall in terms of quality acting, and, nothing against the likes of Lost in Translation, but after his period of Bill-Murray-wantz-Oscar-so-he-haz-a-sad performances, it's nice to see him play it funny, if not entirely comedic, again. He also gets one of the best one-liners in the crackling script, "I sold cars in Chicago with the wind so far up my ass I was farting snowflakes in July", which may be how I answer the phone now. Lucas Black, a talented young actor who's had the misfortune to mostly be in shitty movies thus far, is also excellent as Buddy, a man who wants to make a good life for his wife and baby and isn't sure how far deep he wants to be pulled into this strange old man's story, but who can't help but be fascinated by him at the same time. There are also a couple quality scenes with the wonderful character actor Bill Cobb as a preacher Felix is (aheh) dead set on securing for the funeral service. The cinematography of the Southern hills and forests by David Boyd, a veteran of similar-looking TV such as Deadwood and Friday Night Lights, is so gorgeous and evocative you can practically smell the fallen leaves and chimney smoke; even with all the movie's got going for it, it wouldn't work nearly as well without him, or Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's twangy score. I wouldn't say Get Low is the kind of film they don't film they don't make anymore, but it's the kind of film they don't make enough of anymore: a rich, deep character study with a real sense of place and time, and a concise, uniquely American story.