Ain’t Them Bodies Saints – 7

A movie director’s first obligation to his audience is to provide appealing, or at least interesting, characters. Not far down the list, however, is providing dialogue that the audience can understand. I don’t want to sit there thinking, what did he say? – even if, as in this movie, it probably doesn’t matter. (If I want to strain my auditory faculties, I can go to the theater.) The combination of Texas accents, taciturn roles and muddled sound-mixing left us wondering what Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara were saying, although Mara’s wonderfully expressive face made up for a lot. Terence Malick’s Badlands is the obvious precursor, and there were not a lot of surprises along the way, but the mood and hardscrabble atmosphere enveloped and washed over us. We knew Casey Affleck’s character would not come to a good end, but when that end came, it felt real and honest.