One Sentence: A very good movie about land rights.
Rated: R
Release Date In Austin: 04-Jan-2012
Nudity: None
I can watch Matt Damon talk about boring things all day. Be it following a woman who doesn’t do anything particularly interesting, math problems, or land rights for gas shale as it is in Promised Land. I can just watch all day, and I don’t mean that because he is good looking. It is his ability to covey a point and deliver a feeling that is just wonderfully executed. He carries that torch very well in Promised Land.
A short movie about going to people’s doors to lease their land to frack for natural gas. Promised Land doesn’t sound like a top movie of the year, but Matt Damon and John Krasinski wrote an amazing script, and Gus Van Sant put it on film in an amazing way. The resulting movie about the confusing choices we have to make between money, the earth, pride and getting out of a hard life make the choice that most of us would think is an easy one to make, seem a lot harder to decide what is right. The movie feels balanced, and paints a picture of normal people trying to do good work, not the evil corporations going for profits. We don’t see those things, we just see people, making hard choices in a hard life and it is excellent. It feels real, satisfying, and true.
I loved Promised Land, it is one of my favorite movies of the year. However I don’t know if everyone will love it. It is slow, doesn’t have anything that blows up, and they talk about natural gas a lot. If you like conversation based independents, then this movie is a prefect choice and I think you should go see it as soon as you can. I don’t think those who don’t like these types of movies, need to go see this one. I think you can skip it. If you trust me however, I would go. It is one of my favorites this year.
5 Stars For Promised Land
