There is a captivating brutal, visceral beauty to the Western thriller THE THICKET. You cannot look away. You are drawn in by the characters, by the setting, by the “adventure”, by the tension, by the pursuit.
Anyone who has ever read a novel or short story by Joe R. Lansdale is immediately taken by his folklorist’s eye for detail no matter what the genre. Focusing on the characters of the story, the dialogue – be it spoken, internalized or silent, and the sub-plots that bubble underneath, Lansdale hones in on the characters, the fabric of a tale and the theme, making for richness and texture ripe for cinematic adaptation. His writing is clear and extremely visual while his characters sparkle – and not necessarily through dialogue, but rather through visual detail. It takes a gifted screenwriter and filmmaker to adapt a Joe R. Lansdale property and that’s exactly why director Elliott Lester and screenwriter Chris Kelley are the perfect pairing to give us the latest Lansdale adaptation, THE THICKET.
THE THICKET is one of the finest adaptations of a Joe R. Lansdale property that I have ever seen. While I am enamored with the gender shift of Cutthroat Bill, and awed by the award-worthy performance of Juliette Lewis, what I appreciate most with this adaptation is Lester’s attention to visuals while balancing that with performance and story. The book is very visually descriptive, and its easy to fall victim to either just delivering pretty visuals and overlooking story and characters or go the other way. Jim Mickle has mastered the art of Lansdale adaptation, and now so has Elliott Lester.
A period piece set in West Texas, in THE THICKET, vengeance and justice take center stage as an inexperienced young man named Jack goes in pursuit of his younger sister Lula who has been kidnapped by the ruthless killer known as Cutthroat Bill. Enlisting the help of renowned bounty hunter Reginald Jones, the pair enlist the aid of some ragtag unlikely heroes like the grave-digging ex-slave Eustace and a hooker with a heart named Jimmy Sue, to join then in the search to track down Cutthroat Bill and rescue Lula, culminating in a final showdown in a deadly “no man’s land” known as THE THICKET.
Casting is impeccable and performances are strong all around. We really need no dialogue. Watching each actor embody their respective character and the story itself with intense naturalness is mesmerizing. Just look at Juliette Lewis as Cutthroat Bill. A gender switch from the book, it takes more than a moment at the film’s opening to discover the identity of this cloaked and coated murderous outlaw, and on that reveal, Lewis is mindblowing with her physicality, her stature, and her facial expressiveness. She doesn’t need to speak. We feel the fear just her presence invokes. Lewis is award-worthy and should be recognized this awards season by critics groups and the Academy.
As Reginald Jones, Peter Dinklage dazzles with his unemotional dark-eyed stare into the soul as if Reginald is reading your thoughts. Tacit power emanates from him and his shorter physical stature when compared to his enemies completely disappears. As Lula, Esme Creed-Miles has facial expressiveness that speaks volumes (and since I think she only has four lines in the film, this makes her captivating), while Leslie Grace as the hooker with a heart Jimmy Su is strong and capable. Levon Hawke is standout as he embraces a wonderful character arc as Jack going from frazzled and frenetic to someone finding backbone and intelligent thinking (courtesy of Reginald and Eustace). And Gbenga Akinnogbe’s performance as Eustace is one of the most emotional as he imbues Eustace with the heart of a lion.
The visual grammar is dazzling. Lester has always had a wonderful command of visuals with color and contrast and his pairing here with cinematographer Guillermo Garza is perfection. Color sparkles with interior saturation and the natural crisp brightness of the outdoors. Exteriors stay wide, giving us the lay of the land, but then slowly move into two-shots and mid-shots as groups get closer and as folks meet their demise. An intimacy or sense of survival develops among individuals and the camera and framing reflect that. Extremely well done through dutching is maintaining POV, staying cognizant of “power” between high and low ground as well as between people. Quite interesting is the way Garza handles that with height differentials between Dinklage and the rest of the cast. This is not a case of June Allyson on apple carts to be at eye level with Jimmy Stewart. This is all within the camera grammar and Garza’s skill. The play of focal lengths for foreground and background is lush and rich.
Lighting is glorious, most notably with the use of backlighting from doors and windows in interiors creating powerful silhouettes. The contrast of the brightness and crispness and clarity of the outdoors and even the air is so striking and strong that we “feel” the cold. Some of the shots with blue sky, pristine white white snow, and the sound of horses hooves breaking the frosted cover atop the snow is almost magical, making the sudden frightening moments of brutality and death even more visceral.
Very key to this adaptation is the visceral intensity of the bloody brutality. You can read it on a page, but when you suddenly see it explode or strike with a gunshot from nowhere or the slice of a neck from behind with a knife and thick rich blood pouring from the target site, the result is eye-popping shock.
Structurally, the tone of THE THICKET is set with an opening title “prologue” in terms of the energy, the tension, and the visceralness of what’s to come. The emotional connection with the audience is made from the start with the performances and the active environment, and thanks to the work of editor Jean Christophe Bouzy, that connection only intensifies. Editing is slick and sharp. Bouzy finds those emotional beats, those beats of brutality, and knows when to hold a shot and when to rapidly cut with the ease of a knife severing a neck. And just wait until the end of the third act for the most beautiful languid and peaceful moments of the film. You may just find yourself reaching for a tissue or two.
Adding to the experience is Ann Maskrey’s costume design which speaks volumes as she covers all modes of dress for all types of people, using layers upon layers, colors, and fabrications to define each. Not to be outdone, production designer Justin Ludwig excels at creating outposts and towns of the period and apportioning them with period-appropriate accouterment.
Not to be overlooked is the sound design. Under the watchful ear of Chris Baker and James Fonnyadt and their teams, the sound is sharp, nuanced, and telling. Winter and forested areas provide so many ambient notes to play with from horses hooves to wagon wheels, boots sinking into snow, branches breaking, the crack of a rifle against the silent air. This is a beautiful aural tapestry of subtlely textured sound.
The icing on the cake is Ray Suen’s score which goes hand-in-hand with the sound design. Sweeping and cinematic, the musicality mirrors the collective emotion of the characters. Instrumentation is a powerful part of the score and never more so than in at the end of the third act with a simple, elegant piano set against no dialogue and the beauty of a blue Montana sky. The story has come full circle and the final images with piano is just breathtaking.
Taking creative chances with genre and style, not to mention adapting a Joe R. Lansdale book to the screen, with THE THICKET Elliott Lester succeeds on every level, delivering a powerful visual wonder that speaks to the senses with performance, sight and sound creating connective, resonant unforgettable emotion.
Directed by Elliott Lester
Written by Chris Kelley based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale
Cast: Juliette Lewis, Peter Dinklage, Esme Creed-Miles, Levon Hawke, Leslie Grace, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Arliss Howard, James Hetfield
by debbie elias, 08/21/2024
THE THICKET is only in theatres on September 6th.
