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Chrystal review
:. Director: Ray McKinnon
:. Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Lisa Blount
:. Running Time: 2:.0
:. Year: 2004
:. Country: USA
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Some movies are problematic as they embark you on a great voyage before getting you lost on some sort of screenwriting back roads. Writer/director/actor Ray McKinnon takes us on a haunting and difficult journey through the South, a region that—to his own admission—he knows well, having grown up there.
Set in a small Southern community, Chrystal opens with the return of Joe (Billy Bob Thornton) back home, as he tries to reunite with his wife, Chrystal (Lisa Blount), after a few years spent in jail. Joe, who left her physically and mentally scarred because of the car accident he was involved in during his arrest, isn't looking for forgiveness but rather for normalcy—he knows he will never be able to compensate for the loss of their unborn child and he is haunted by a vision of a little boy who would have been his. But finding peace isn't easy, especially since he used to "professionally" grow marijuana and soon former partners and the FBI are after him.
McKinnon mostly describes the experience of living in a small community in the South and it certainly makes you thankful to come from a civilized area where your neighbors have all their teeth and don't carry a shotgun in their pick-up trucks. While there are only a few normal characters here—mostly the cop—the film isn't really condescending as it comes pretty close to what you would see driving through towns in Tennessee or Iowa—at least that's the feeling I got there. While primitiveness, racism and abuse against women are present here, there is, however, a notion of cultural heritage through the writer who arrives to document the history of Southern Music. We witness an improvised session of blue-grass and for a short moment, we get a sense of cultural beauty rising from this rough and dry world.
Chrystal's atmosphere is heavy and McKinnon exhibits a real literary flair, be it in his script or his way of filming. He wraps the audience in his story and setting and pays close attention to his characters, who are fleshed out enough to become alive onscreen; the cast can certainly also take credit for this, starting with Blount and Thornton—McKinnon as Snake is also pretty colorful. Blount is intense. In a difficult role; she shows both fragility and beauty, even igniting while singing a blue-grass song. Thornton is subdued, almost a ghost-like figure with wild eyes, particularly comfortable in the kind of roles that fit him well.
Chrystal is set as a dark poetic piece, whose rhythm is almost contemplative. There are long quiet scenes which increase the feeling of desolation and void. However, the poetic turn that the story takes toward the end suddenly brings confusion to the ensemble, offering an unbelievable surreal touch that clashes with the overall dramatic and slight comedic tones of the picture. What looked like a dark satire becomes a fable, with the same kind of abrupt contrast seen in a film like A.I. The Rambo/Robinson Crusoe twist looks as ridiculous as Joe's cliché exit and you get the feeling that as a writer McKinnon didn't know what to do his story or where to take it and found an easy way out. In the end, Chrystal might find peace and happiness while Joe gets closer to unexpected redemption, but the spectator seems to have been robbed of what could have been a fine film.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Movie Reviews: from 2012 to present
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