Review of Frailty (2012) by Matthew B — 23 Jul 2015

Bill Paxton's directional debut, "Frailty" is a powerful story about father-son relationship, faith, delusion and emotional abuse with disturbing yet lovely anti-Christian subtext and it's a damn shame it doesn't live up to what it promises.

"Frailty" is a remarkable film. Magnificent, really. Till the last 15 minutes when the first twist land before our eyes, causing a little bit of confusion and quickly followed by another that floors viewer on the ground, making him shake his head mutely and then mumble angrily: "Why?".

The problem with twists is that they never lift the value of the material, and with badly putted ones, they make a viewer feel as a victim of practical joke, obviously making it something one would never want to experience again. Knowing that they are reserved for entertaining factors, not for as serious and as intelligently written script as "Frailty" is, which respects our intelligence and imagination from the very beginning, it's seems unbelieveable that Brent Hanley would've wanted this story to end as it ends, making it to be a victim of a few lousy twists that leads us to see how thought-provoking story is turned into a sheer Hollywoodesque nonsense, leaving us feel as if the author's lost touch with the original idea, which is suposedly one of being obsessed with wanting to be someone with a greater purpose than others. It's important, for the most part brilliantly exectued theme which makes the ending only more awful as if 15 minutes were written by someone else.

Seriously, when the credits started to roll, I sighed and imagined myself a scene with some old slowly-thinking jerk at the production office sitting at the corner of his giant oak-desk, throwing the original script on Hanley's knees and saying: "Listen, kid. I like this thing, I really do, but this ending... the older kid kills the father and then we see them how they struggle with their memories some years later. No, no good. It's boring. We need something here that would spice things up a little bit. Throw in some damn FBI agent who will turn out to be the real villain and by doing that you'll make a vigilante from one of the boys or some shit like that. Come back when it's done." Didn't you had the same relevation, too?

But enough of whinning. Paxton's direction is very competent yet low-key; being an actor, he builds each scene very carefully focusing on acting and dialogue, making his directing completely invisible. He also understands perfectly that the true treasure in the script lays in the concept the origins of the father's delusion remain unexplained, making it normal, obvious and mysterious at the same time and, in result, fascinating. Each scene has its inner strong drama that slowly builds tension which keeps us interesting without feeling that we're waiting for something to happen till it explodes in final confronation. Perfect approach.

I don't recall in recent memory any movie which would left me as unsatisfied and in the notion of being cheated as "Frailty" did. Probably because I loved it so much to see it ending as fascinating as it started. Even though I imagine it as a picture that could've been a psychological masterpiece and think of it a deeply flawed film seeing it as it is, I admire every single inspiring and simply good element it contains.