GET LOW

How does a person handle deep, irrational love that envelopes the body and spirit and won’t let go? How can anyone prevent such a love from causing destruction?

What is the best way to ask for forgiveness?

These are the questions posed by the Robert Duvall movie Get Low, directed by Aaron Schneider and written by Chris Provenzano.

In 1920s small town American, Duvall portrays Felix Bush, a hirsute hermit with a secret past. Felix wakes from a 40-year funk and decides to orchestrate his own funeral and attend it as the main speaker. He is assisted in this plan by Buddy Robinson, sweetly acted by Lucas Black. Black, as a young boy played the lead opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.

Times are hard in a flapper, Model T sort of way. Bill Murray, as Frank Quinn, the sarcastic funeral director, laments “Everywhere in the world people are dying. Everywhere but here.” He finds Felix fascinating because Felix has a big greasy wad of money to spend on a funeral “party.” If Felix can pay, Quinn can arrange anything.

In Duvall sinner-saint fashion, reminiscent of The Apostle, Felix turns the tables on everyone. “Am I the only one,” Quinn asks, “who has noticed this guy is extremely articulate when he wants to be?”

Suspense builds as the date of the funeral nears. Felix rekindles a romance with Mattie (Sissie Spacek). He travels to Illinois to visit Rev. Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs) a preacher who would rather stay fixed in his quiet life and play dominoes.

This is a yin/yang story. Nobody wastes time polishing a halo. Good and evil are intertwined, and the world exists in purgatory. The answer is honesty. Felix must learn to ask for forgiveness in order to forgive himself.