Review of The Rover (2014) by Statlerwaldorf — 27 Oct 2015

If you have not seen The Rover then stop reading this review and go watch The Rover. I walked into this movie with the background that it was post-apocalyptic and had good performances. Both of those things are true to the fullest extent one could hope for, but there is much more to it than that.

There is a total desolation and perfect balance to its sparse moving parts. It stands like a confounding inverse mobile found in the blasted Outback. It is a litmus, it rewards patience, you will probably not agree with all of my praise.

When the big “reveal” happens some people will groan and others will relive every moment of the film and appreciate them anew, not in the way of a Twilight Zone or Shyamalan twist, but in the way of dismantling a bit of analogue technology and seeing the beauty and simplicity of elegant design—even the name is balanced within the microcosm of the film’s (non)mystery—but the greatest part of it is that the characters show you everything about themselves from their earliest moments and with that comes a kind of perfection within the reality they portray that is rarely represented in film and heretofore missing from the post-apocalyptic subgenre.

Most movies make you feel for their antiheroes by making them cool, world-changing, or having them change at the end. The Rover does not make these concessions, but if you’re really watching, then, in spite of the seeming senselessness, you will feel what Eric feels, and it will feel like what it would feel like to live after the end of the world: having had something beautiful that you did not understand destroyed in front of your eyes and knowing that nothing will ever bring it back.