Get Low (2010)

Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek are two of the American cinema’s finest living actors, and that’s probably the best case to be made for watching GET LOW, a small and quiet film about an old man with secrets who plans his own funeral and wants to have that funeral while he’s alive to witness it. Bill Murray, no acting slouch himself, plays the funeral director hurting for business who takes on the unusual idea.

Felix Bush (Duvall) is a keep-off-my-property kind of hermit living in backwoods Tennessee in the 1930s. The film opens mysteriously with a man running from the scene of a fire. Is it Felix? We don’t know—at first. But what we do know early on is that Felix is a man with many secrets and few friends. He is feared and hated in town. This makes his idea to pay for and throw his own funeral while he’s still alive all the more of a head-scratcher. Who will work with him? Who would show up? And why would Felix choose to put himself through some potentially uncomfortable conversations?

It turns out that Buddy, a young apprentice to a local funeral director (played by Murray), is the guy willing to take on the job, with the blessing of that director, Frank Quinn. Quinn’s business is hurting, and a customer is a customer, however strange the request. Buddy takes Felix’s demands seriously. He publicizes the “party” on the local radio station and posts flyers all over town. But it remains to be seen if anyone will show up, until Felix pulls an unusual stunt. During a live radio interview, Felix tells listeners that there will be a lottery, and that a winning ticket will be drawn that awards the winner all of his land and property when he dies. It’s a big piece of land, too—quite a prize. Suddenly, the town is interested.

The turnout at Felix’s funeral is massive – one of those huge crowd scenes you see in folksy movies like this, usually set at a state fair. And if there’s a reason to see GET LOW, it’s for Duvall’s performance in this scene, where Felix delivers a painful and confessional speech to the stunned crowd, coming clean for past transgressions. It’s an acting master-class, and if Duvall scores another Oscar nomination for what is otherwise a fairly pedestrian film, it will be no surprise. It’s one of the best things he’s ever done, and this man has done some amazing work. But not since “The Apostle” have I seen anything from him like this.

GET LOW plays a charming and emotional film version of a folk tale. When it’s over, I felt glad that I went along for the ride but did not feel that I witnessed film greatness (Duvall’s work notwithstanding). And Spacek’s work as a woman from Felix’s past was also good, but nowhere as substantial and flashy as some of the supporting work from women in films in 2010. Director Aaron Schneider makes his feature film debut as a director here after working chiefly as a cinematographer, and GET LOW does play out like the work of a newbie looking for his voice. It’s a quiet little diamond in the rough, but nothing transcendent. And if nothing else, it places another memorable character and performance onto one of the most astounding resumes in Hollywood history.

2.5 out of 4