Perhaps
it is time to rethink your dream of becoming a motelier in small town Alaska.
It turns out that life is not all caviar and champagne. This is especially true
for a nerve-damaged former rodeo star when a triple homicide stuns his sleepy burg.
The killer happens to be sleeping in Sam Rossi’s sheets, so it is almost
inevitable he will strike again uncomfortably close to home in Jamie M. Dagg’s Sweet Virginia, which screens
during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Ironically,
the Virginia-born hitman calling himself Elwood recognizes fellow Virginian Rossi
from his rodeo days. You could say he is in town on business. Elwood is
responsible for killing three men playing their regular late night poker game
at Tom Barrett’s restaurant. He had only been contracted by Lila McCabe to kill
her abusive, good-for-nothing husband, but Elwood does not like to wait.
Unfortunately, he will have to, if he wants to collect his money.
As
it turns out, her loving hubby did not reveal their real financial situation to
McCabe. It’s not pretty. Neither is the state of her conscience, knowing that
two other men died because of her. Bernadette Barrett is also in a strange
emotional place. She is truly sorry her husband died, but her growing feelings
for Rossi, with whom she has been secretly carrying on an affair, remain
undiminished. As the Widows Barrett and McCabe console each other, Elwood grows
restive, which bodes ill for the town.
Sweet Virginia (a holdover title
from earlier drafts set in rural VA, which really doesn’t make much sense
anymore) is being billed as a “neo-western,” which is becoming a catch-all
label for small town anxiety. Despite a few killings, it is worlds removed from
Hell or High Water. The best part of Sweet VA is the relationship between
Rossi and Barrett, two people wounded by life, who have found a bit of respite
together. Unfortunately, most of the stuff around them plays out like
warmed-over Fargo, except at a
fraction of the pace.
Yet,
to his credit, Dagg (who previously helmed the not-bad River) uncorks some tense scenes that make us sit up and suddenly
start to care again. The opening murder scene is deceptively tense and a later
home-invasion sequence is a real hum-dinger. In contrast, the unconvincing bromance
that develops agonizingly slowly between Rossi and Elwood is mostly just a
snooze.
John
Bernthal and Rosemarie DeWitt are terrific as Rossi and Barrett. In contrast,
Christopher Abbott seems to be trying to channel Shia LaBeouf as Elwood, which
is a dubious strategy. Relying on little makeup, the glammed down Imogen Poots
is still almost unrecognizable as McCabe, but she gets surprisingly little
screen time, given her comparative prominence.
