Rooney Mara (left) waits for imprisoned Casey Affleck in “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.” (
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It’s not quite true that “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” feels like the product of a filmmaker who hasn’t lived a life or come up with anything to say: Writer-director David Lowery is very clearly saying that he has lived his life watching movies. Two of them in particular.
This is a timeless, and familiar, Texas tale of two desperadoes separated after a shootout with sheriffs. Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck, very strong) takes the rap for both and goes to prison for the foreseeable future, while his ladylove Ruth Guthrie (an exceptional Rooney Mara) carries and gives birth to his child.
Meanwhile, a cop (Ben Foster) wounded in the gunfire starts hanging around the pretty, semi-widowed Ruth, letting her know he has no hard feelings about the bullets and all. (She is in fact the one who shot him, but when she reveals this, he reacts with less annoyance than if she’d told him she took $10 out of his wallet when he wasn’t looking.)
When word arrives that Bob has broken out of prison (which, typically for this aggressively understated film, happens offscreen), the young sheriff slowly conducts the most incompetent search for a fugitive you’ll ever see. Really, why look for a bandit in a building unless you’re first going to station a man at every possible exit? Walking in the front door and saying, “Any escaped men around here?” isn’t going to work.
In mashing together story elements from Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” with the look of Malick’s “Days of Heaven,” Lowery put 90 percent of his energy into the atmosphere and 10 percent into the script. What you’ll take away are the bleary saloons, dusty general stores and the mood lighting at Ruth’s house. All things are arranged for the pleasure of the cinematographer, Bradford Young, to the point where his elaborate chiaroscuro stylings first distract from the story and then overwhelm it. I nearly shouted, “Ease up a little, Caravaggio! The director of photography isn’t the star.”
Still, I hated the film substantially less the second time I saw it, and maybe three more viewings are all I need. For all his rejection of dramatic payoffs and his drowsy affectedness, Lowery does lock your gaze on his little fable, conjuring up a world steeped in American outlaw mythology. I wasn’t transfixed, but I could almost smell the gunpowder and leather.