Rudderless

William H. Macy’s debut as a director is based on a screenplay that he co-wrote with Casey Twenter and Jeff Robison. It is a likeable but ungainly hybrid of serious life drama and indie feelgooder that is too neat in execution to get beyond the superficial.

Much of the film’s charm comes from Billy Crudup as a successful advertising executive Sam (Billy Crudup) whose world comes apart when his son is killed in a college campus shooting. He drops out, hits the bottle and starts living in a docked yacht (as you do) and working as a humble house painter. Then one day he discovers his son’s demo tapes, learns the songs (he too was a muso in his younger days) and heads down to a local open mic night where Macy’s bar owner hold court. There he is approached by an aspiring musician Quentin (Anton Yelchin) and before you can say “garage band” he’s rockin’ da joint with a hot little indie band. With nothing evident in the way of rehearsal Sam and Quentin move seamless;y from sounding like Simon and Garfunkel to fronting a pop band (Crudup actually sings and plays guitar) with the very unhip name of Rudderless but some cleverly catchy anthemic songs (credited to Simon Steadman, Charlton Steadman and Fink).

Although it all comes far too easily with Yelchin over-doing the puppy-dog persona which along with the black leather Macy who presumably is a Sinatra fan seems to think is de rigeur for an indie pop band this is the most entertaining part of the film with Sam achieving some kind of resolution to his grief.  Then about two-thirds of the way into the film a significant twist is introduced that puts his pain (and that of his former wife played by Felicity Huffman) in a very different light.  The trouble is that this doesn’t affect our interpretation of what has gone before or shade what comes after.  The film burbles along in the same genial manner in what now appears to be the filmic equivalent of chronic denial.  

It is somewhat strange that Macy who has worked with some top drawer film-makers like David Mamet and the Coen brothers didn’t try to achieve more with his material but apparently his sensibility is less demanding than that of those directors and a neatly-wrapped story is as much as he aspired to. .

 

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