Review of A River Runs Through It (1992) by Spencer S — 15 May 2013

Ya know, I don't like to criticize movies like this. Their objective is to create an authentic setting and tell a story, and when they do, who are we to say they didn't achieve their goals? But so often they seem to climb up their own asses, and I can't help myself.

This is one of those films I've defined as Oscar bait. Such pictures are characterized by sweeping orchestral themes, long shots of beautiful scenery, uplifting scenes of life, and other such audience manipulations designed to make you like or identify with the characters. Oscar bait films are evident from the outset because they are as inoffensive as possible, often while dealing with serious or "profound" issues. This leads to the "up their own ass" comment I made above, because they tend to overdo it. As a result, most of them also aren't particularly good or bad movies. They sit firmly in the above average range. Competent, well made, but ultimately shallow.

Oh I know, many people think this film is deep and poignant. I disagree. The most poignant films for me are those that seamlessly entwine philosophy and emotion, not those that smash you over the head with quote fodder. The reason River fails is because of this exact reason, in the form of the narrator. Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks all narration is bad, but excessive narration when fewer words will do most certainly is. There are multiple points during the film where Redford is literally taking five sentences to say one thing, obviously for the sake of trying to appear profound. This leads to phrases like, "life is not a work of art." Really? You're gonna go with that particular combination of words? Life is nothing but art. The act of existing is almost unbearably profound and beautiful if you take the time to think about it. Of course, the quote was meant to illustrate the loss of a moment in time, and the bitterness of nostalgia, but that's no excuse for idiotic writing. There are multiple examples of this, but for me the final narration bit was the most painful. First of all, if you say the name of your movie for symbolic purposes, you're doing a bad job. Second, it's a word salad of water-related ideas. You get what Redford is trying to say, but it's butchered horribly by overly verbose sentence structure.

Again, A River Runs Through It isn't a bad film. It's just tedious and designed to appeal to surface contemplations of life at best.