Review of Leaves of Grass (2009) by Manny C — 18 Nov 2010

At first glance, Leaves of Grass, which stars Edward Norton in the role of twins, one intellectual, the other a stoner, looks like nothing more than a gimmick. But Norton and writer-director Tim Blake Nelson do a fine job of mining the script's delicious humor, laced with genuine nuance and feeling. The title evokes Walt Whitman, but also pot, and those who love it. Norton is Bill Kincaid, a philosophy professor at Brown, estranged from his twin brother Brady (also Norton), a pot grower. Brady tricks Bill into returning home to Little Dixie, Oklahoma, to reunite him with their hippie mother (Susan Sarandon, yay) and help them both take out a Jewish drug lord named Pug Rothbaum (a very hammy Richard Dreyfuss).

The film is a jarring mix of violence and humor, but Nelson, who also stars as Brady's best pal Bolger, who is an actual Okie Jew with a degree from Brown keeps things grounded in reality. It's evident Nelson is working out some issues, but that's fine by me. His movie is laced with provocative feeling. Brady may speak like a hick, but he's actually his brother's intellectual equal, and his sexual equal, having hooked up Bill with the first girl who did all kinds of naughty things with him. But the driving force of Leaves of Grass is, of all things, philosophy. It's a question of whether living on your own principles can be a way of life. Norton delivers yet another fantastic performance, a risk that pays off big. Here's a movie that will get you high on its boldness.