Revue “Eric Larue”: Judy Greer as mother of Shool Shooter

Like the plague of America's school shots Continue tirelesslyA constant flow of films arose in response to the current tragedy. These films have directed the whole range – sometimes focusing on survivors, sometimes on shooters, sometimes on parents – and likewise their strategies have varied, promising catharsis, hope or insight. It may therefore be that the most recent addition to this sad sub-genre is the most digital. After all, who needs catharsis, hope or insight when these killings continue to occur?

Based on the piece by Brett Neveu in 2002, which he adapted to a script, the fragile drama “Eric Larue” reflects the intense and serious style of its director, the actor nominated in Oscars Michael ShannonWho makes his debut on the camera. The film draws its title from the name of a teenager who one day decided to shoot three of his classmates, devastating of a small town in general and the parents of the victims and the shooter in particular.

Shannon, who does not act in the film, focuses on a parent: Eric's mother, Janice (Judy Greer), who has lived her life since the murders in a fog. She doesn't know how to act and she doesn't know how to feel. It is a testimony of Shannon's management that he fully undertakes to overwhelm us in the unimaginable emotional stupor of Janice, even when this courageous approach turns out to be the loss of the film.

Greer exploits his considerable appeal to play someone who wanted nothing more than being left alone. Smoking a chain of cigarettes or looking empty everything on television, his face on a canvas of exhaustion and depression, Janice is struggling to pick up the pieces. Get revealing, the film never specifies how long the shooting has occurred. All we know is that the trial is finished and that Eric has been in prison, and that he has been there for enough time for the ineffective and clumsy pastor of Janice, Steve (Paul Sparks), is surprised that she has not yet visited him. “Eric Larue” presents only the most beautiful of stories – we learn that Eric was not popular – but unlike a similar drama centered on the mother, “we must speak of Kevin”, the motivations of the killer are not supposed to be disentangled. Eric murdered these boys and was sent back. All that Janice can do now is to wonder what's going on.

Most films on school shoots, including “Elephant”, “Mass” and “The Fallout”, tackle the shock, sorrow and horror that have repercussions in communities. But Shannon's starchy tone, accentuated by the dismal partition of Jonathan Mastro, does not allow any place for emotional theaters or psychological breakthroughs. Instead, “Eric Larue” criticizes society (and perhaps also that of Hollywood) to give meaning to the fool. Everyone around Janice tries to find ways to reconcile with what happened, but Janice does not want without part. The problem is that she doesn't really know what she wants.

Eric's act made a ditch between Janice and her husband, Ron (Alexander Skarsgård). The two characters are religious, but after the shooting, Ron moved away from the presbyterian church of Steve, seduced by Bill (Tracy Lets), a charismatic (and regressive) pastor who says to the fragile Ron what he wants to hear about his faith in a Jesus who will wash his pain. Janice, who does not want or unable to open, is not as needy as her spouse, who begins to marry biblical platitudes with the desperate certainty of a drowning man recognizing for any raft of life.

Although Greer is a formidable comic actress, she only shows this side occasionally in “Eric Larue” and very subtly, once Janice begins to react to the empty philosophy of Ron. There is an integrity into the thorny resistance of Janice to calm down with a delicate speech of God, although she looks at Ron to find comfort in Bill's raid, we feel signs of envy: at least he can sleep at night.

Banal Balms surrounds Janice, driving her slowly crazy. Whether at the hardware store where Janice works – an insipid motivation poster hangs on the wall of the boss encouraging passers -by to “commit to changing!” Change to get involved! ” – Or Steve's clumsy attempts to bring together Janice and the mothers of the victims for a meeting so that they can “heal”, Shannon deplores the little authentic help for people taken in the reticle of the tragedy.

“Eric Larue” is the best when his quietest points strike the strongest. Janice's superiors advised him to go back to work – it's bad for employees' morale, they explain – and yet, no one at Ron's office post, notably the director of HR Flirty by Alison Pill, Lisa (a fervent follower of Bill's), has an eye on having it around. Such an insidious sexism appears through “Eric Larue” as Janice puts himself without knowing it in a metaphorical cage because she will not follow a book of rules unwritten on the way in which a mourning mother is “supposed” to behave. Retired and caustic, Janice is a raw piece of non-compliance bombed by those determined to “repair” it. But when psychological wounds have been so deep, how can it know what would even mean the fixation of itself?

Shannon long -standing collaborator Jeff Nichols serves as an executive producer and “Eric Larue” echoes the prudent attention of the filmmaker with the unrelated pockets of American life, in particular the difficult tension between God and firearms. Unfortunately, the film lacks a graceful representation of everyday nichols. Despite his respectful restraint, “Eric Larue” can suffocate in his solemnity, letting Janice feel at a note rather than a woman lost in her tangle of emotions. And some of the support performances are simplistic, with Steve de Sparks incredibly unhappy as a spiritual guide and Ron has Cartoonish imagining of skarsgård of blind religious devotion.

But just at the time when the film's missteps start to frustrate, the story lands on an incredibly discreet moment that suggests the character study potentially rich below. Finally, Janice will visit her son, played provocatively by the Sage Nation Henrikson. The end should not be spoiled, but even during his final, “Eric Larue” refuses to provide clear clues about how to feel about this mother or her boy. There will be more school shoots and inevitably more films faced with this epidemic. Shannon does not offer easy solutions, although his sincerely designed intrigue is insufficient in his own way.