Get Low

On the Friday night, a few of us went to see Get Low at Cineworld. The place was packed as this was a special screening where the director, Aaron Schneider was doing a question and answer session afterwards.

Set in 1930s Tennessee, the film tells the story of a village hermit, Felix Bush, and his struggle with his past. The people of the town have concocted many stories about Bush and vicious rumours have circulated the town for years. However one day Bush learns about how everyone in the town seems to know a different story about him and he is eager to hear them. So he decides to arrange his own funeral and invite everyone from the town who knows a story to come along and tell it. The town's fast sinking funeral parlour business is only too happy to oblige when Bush comes in with a large wad of money demanding his own funeral party.

If I'm honest I really enjoyed the film from start to finish. I think you actually know after a few minutes of watching a film if it's any good or not and how much you're going to invest yourself in the story and its characters. Well right from the start of Get Low I was hooked. The cinematography and style of the shots were really crisp and beautiful right from the start. The story unfolds gradually and we begin to learn more about the hermit character and what he is apparently hiding. There is also a great cast which helps to really bring the film alive with Bill Murray and Robert Duvall playing leading roles.

The film was also funny as well as it was moving. And although it deals with deep themes of love and guilt it never got too heavy with moments of comic relief made easy with Billy Murray's performance. Overall, I found the story greatly moving especially at the climax which is more about learning about what happened years ago than it is a new event. It felt like a proper cinema experience with everyone sitting going through the emotions of the film at the same time. And when it was over it was a really good experience as well to hear the director talk about the making of the film from what it was like directing big stars to how he had to edit the whole thing himself in a couple of months using Final Cut Pro because they had literally run out of money. I really hope a company in Britain buys the film so that it can be released over here because, in my opinion, it was a lot better than most of the junk released every month at Cineworld and it deserves to be shown worldwide.