Netflix spent $16 million to amass this bittersweet historic odyssey.
PLOT: A contented logger (Joel Edgerton), plying his commerce within the early days of the 20th century, finds his life marked by tragedy as he witnesses the delivery of a altering world.
REVIEW: Regardless of going into the Sundance Movie Pageant with solely a modest quantity of buzz, Clint Bentley’s Practice Goals wound up incomes one of many splashiest offers of the pageant. Netflix shelled out a large $16 million for the rights to this elegant slice of early twentieth-century Americana, which might be an awards contender if given the correct build-up. It options one among star Joel Edgerton’s finest performances and marks the arrival of director Clint Bentley as a big expertise.
Bentley’s earlier movie, Jockey, was an art-house success, and he not too long ago earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the screenplay to Sing Sing. Practice Goals feels just like the film that can put him on the map in a giant manner. It’s a beautiful, contemplative meditation of man’s place on this planet that feels in contrast to something I’ve seen lately. It’s like an early Terrence Malick movie (extra within the vein of Days of Heaven than something latest), depicting a Nineteenth-century man coming to phrases together with his place within the twentieth century.
Edgerton has by no means been higher than he’s as Robert Grainier. An itinerant logger who was born within the late Nineteenth century, he plies his commerce in post-Nice Battle America and finds happiness when he falls in love with a sort lady named Gladys (Felicity Jones) and has a baby. But, when engaged on the railroad, he witnesses the racist homicide of a Chinese language rail employee. He’s haunted by the sufferer, partly as a result of, as a consequence of neither talking the opposite language, the employee died pondering Grainier was a participant in his homicide, regardless that he was attempting to avoid wasting him. Regardless of the case, Grainier appears like a participant in his demise, and is traumatized by what he noticed, with it tainting his life from then on.
One factor Practice Goals does fantastically is depict how, even when the world round him was altering, within the early twentieth century, males like Grainier had been nonetheless dwelling distinctly Nineteenth-century lives. Whereas surrounded by magnificence (expertly shot in 1:33:1 by DP Adolpho Veloso), the world was additionally fraught with hazard. Complete households might be worn out instantly.
The film follows Grainier’s odyssey as he struggles with the growing fickleness of destiny, and Edgerton’s efficiency is deeply empathetic. Whereas a person of the land, he’s not uncurious in regards to the world round him and has a deep, form streak that makes his journey simple to spend money on. Edgerton has by no means been higher, with all the movie resting on his shoulders, with him nearly by no means off-screen. He’d be remembered on the 2026 Academy Awards in a simply world.
Felicity Jones is equally good as his form however robust spouse, who places up with the truth that, because of the nature of his work, she’s left elevating their youngster alone for months at a time. Some could examine it to her latest work in The Brutalist, however one may argue she’s extra idealized right here, as we solely ever see her by Grainier’s point-of-view, with him unfailingly adoring her all through. William H. Macy additionally has a pleasant flip as a grizzled logger who takes Grainier underneath his wing for a spell, whereas Kerry Condon has two unbelievable scenes as a lady our hero encounters throughout his center years, and proves to be his window right into a altering world.
It’s heartening to know that Practice Goals left Sundance with such an ideal distribution deal, because it’s among the many finest movies I noticed on the fest. It’s the type of film that stays with you lengthy after you see it and hopefully will get the type of build-up it deserves, as it would doubtless rank among the many finest movies of the yr when all is claimed and completed.
