Review of The Motel Life (2013) by Thomas W — 29 Nov 2013

Rare is the film that completely catches me off guard and surprises me with an excellent, simple little story filled with compassion and understanding of something so many never take the time to consider.

The Motel Life is based upon a popular novel of the same name by Willy Vlautin and directed by brothers Alan and Gabe Polsky; and it makes perfect sense that it would be real-life brothers who have directed this gem of a picture about the bonds of brotherhood and the ties that bind.

Emile Hirshe (Into the Wild) and Stephen Dorff (Somewhere) play [eternally] down-on-their-luck orphaned brothers who had been instructed by their dying mother to always remain together ... and they have through hardship after hardship while drifting from one low-dollar motel to the next looking out for one another and remaining the only true constant in one another's life.

The brothers aren't ignorant, they just aren't overly bright as education was obviously always put on the back-burner while looking out for one another. A childhood accident leaves Jerry (Dorff) without part of a leg and this plays a big part in who the brothers have become -- Frank (Hirsch) becomes Jerry's storytelling guardian when they both wish to avoid life's harsher moments by immersing themselves in a world of fantastical hope pitting themselves against the world in which they come out on top.

The film is about some of the poor choices the poor make when placed in poor situations -- and it simply asks an audience for compassion. These characters make (big) mistakes and it stumbles a bit out of the gate making me uncertain as to whether or not I was going to like this stark drama; but once one gives the brothers the chance that life doesn't give to them -- one gets hit with a massive punch to the gut.

The film costars Dakota Fanning (The Runaways) as a former love interest of Frank's and Kris Kristofferson (Blade) as a makeshift fatherly figure to Frank after giving the boy a job at the age of 15.

The stark drama is intriguingly directed as it shifts from live-action reality to moments of animated fantasy allowing the audience a reprieve from the desperate situation onscreen. The film is grown-up and graphically -- as in animation -- mature but also surprisingly tender and sensitive.

I have not seen a film like this in a long while ... I wasn't sure how to react when the end credits began to roll. So I cried.