In
recent years, the military has sanitized their marching cadences. Now the “yellow
bird” gets his “little head” smashed, rather than his “f’ing head.” Surely,
this has caused great relief among ornithologists everywhere. Unfortunately,
they have not been able to prettify the nature of warfare itself. Incidents
from the Iraq War will haunt survivors in Alexandre Moors’ Yellow Birds (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in New York.
Brandon
Bartle is twenty-one, making him a veritable gray beard compared to
eighteen-year-old Daniel Murphy, but they are both from rural Virginia, so they
bond during basic training. Sergeant Sterling also recognizes their
reliability, so he takes them under his wing, at least to an extent. This is
mostly a good thing, especially when they first arrive in-country.
We
can tell from the flashback structure something profoundly unfortunate happened
during their deployment, but Bartle clearly survived, since we watch the film
through his remorseful POV. It is not long before we realize Murph’s fate remains
unresolved, because a good deal of the third act involves his mother Maureen
Murphy’s crusade for the truth. She is the one played by executive producer
Jennifer Aniston (that’s right, Rachel from Friends
is playing the mother of an eighteen-year-old).
Reportedly,
Yellow Birds was recut after its
Sundance premiere, which makes sense considering there are cast-members listed
on its imdb page we’re at a loss to remember. The current cut is pretty tight
and the temporal shifts mostly work, which is saying something. However, the
current cut is probably not sufficiently scathing to satisfy to the anti-war
left (which includes our current president), nor is it sympathetic enough to appeal
to military families and supporters. Instead, it feels like it walks a
carefully calibrated line down the middle, like one would more expect from a TV
movie.
Alden
Ehrenreich (who has had a tough summer with Solo)
is very good as Bartle. He does his share of brooding, but it is a more complex
performance than just that. Toni Collette also elevates the largely
stereotypical role of his mother Amy (between this and Hereditary, she gives quite a composite portrait of motherhood).
Aniston is fine as Mother Murphy, but it is a very safe role. However, Jack
Huston is terrific as the increasingly unstable, but still formidable Sgt.
Sterling. Most disappointingly, Jason Patric is largely squandered as CID
Captain Anderson.
David
Lowery’s screenplay, subsequently worked over by R.F.I. Porto, represents a
good faith effort to adapt Kevin Powers’ novel. The film exhibits genuine
empathy for Bartle and Murphy, which is to its credit. There are also some
relatively convincing scenes of warfighting, but it never reaches the level of classical
tragedy that it clearly aspires to. Indeed, it feels rather narrow in scope,
especially compared to Patric’s classic war movie, The Beast. Yellow Birds is
not a scandal, but it still doesn’t justify Manhattan ticket prices when it
opens tomorrow (6/15), at the Village East.
