Just Blowing Through

Every year, there are one or two movies that show up on several critics "best of the year" lists, but that nevertheless remain completely outside the conversation for the major awards. This year, seizing that honor ("honor?") is Blow the Man Down.

Set in a Maine fishing town, Blow the Man Down is the story of two sisters, Priscilla and Mary Beth, just straddling either side of adulthood. In the wake of their mother's funeral and subsequent financial concerns, the two are forced to cover up an accidental (but arguably justifiable?) murder. And their secret is hardly the only one in the small town.

You might best characterize this movie as a gender-swapped version of the movie Fargo. That's a bit simplistic, and ill-fitting in a few areas. But every major role in the story is a woman other than the cops on the case. There's a similar style in that the setting is so hyper-specific as to become a character itself. The subject matter is similarly dark and grisly, yet laced with a quirky streak of black humor. If you liked Fargo (in either its film incarnation, or any of the subsequent seasons of television), you will probably find something to like in this movie.

But writer-directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy aren't merely trying to be "the Coen Sisters," if you will. It feels so much more subtle to me than any Coen movie, with a better balance between narrative and character, and relatively fewer fanciful flourishes. (One key one, though, seems to have anticipated a viral internet meme: sea shanties.) There is something defiantly feminist in this movie, despite the fact that so many of the characters are despicable (or, arguably, because they are).

The core cast is strong, with the two leads, Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe, carrying the story well enough. The real show-stealer, though, is a performer you will undoubtedly recognize from any number of other places: the exceptional character actor Margo Martindale plays Enid, the proprietor of the town's brothel, and infuses every scene she's in with quiet menace.

The movie still wasn't quite "for me," and just misses out on my own Top 10 list with a Grade B. But I think enough readers of my blog would find it much more to their liking, so I'm giving it my own modest signal boost and recommendation.