‘The Dry Land” is a gut-wrenching look at the human cost of war.
The setting is West Texas, to which James returns after traumatic service in Iraq. Physically he’s fine, but mentally he’s a mess, the result of an attack on his Humvee that killed two buddies.
His mind has blocked out details of the ambush, and James won’t be able to adjust to civilian life until he can remember them.
The film — the first feature for writer-director Ryan Piers Williams — follows James on a beer-soaked search for the truth. Joining up with another war buddy, he travels to Walter Reed hospital, where, he hopes, another survivor of the attack — a double amputee — can fill in the gaps.
Ryan O’Nan gives an inspired performance as James, who lives in a trailer with his bank-clerk wife, Sara (an underused America Ferrera). She gets her husband a job at her daddy’s slaughterhouse, but watching cattle being slaughtered raises memories of human slaughter in Iraq. As James becomes more and more violent and disoriented, she goes home to her father.
Melissa Leo gives a worthy performance as James’ dying mother, who confesses to her son, “I had myself convinced we’d never see you again.”
Williams keeps “The Dry Land” free of overt politics and messages — but it’s impossible to watch the film and not realize that war is folly.