Starring: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy, David Field
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Jun 2014
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Director David Michôd has graced this bleak, dystopian Australian road movie with just enough moments of beauty and surprise to make up for the rest of the grim journey.
The film opens ’10 years after the collapse’. The nature of the collapse is purposefully ambiguous, but what is left afterwards is a lawless, dog eat dog world. Eric (Guy Pearce) hops out of his Holden sedan to grab some supplies, but his car is stolen by a few bandits including Henry (Scoot McNairy). Eric is desperate to get his car back, and takes off across the arid landscape to catch up to the thieves. Michôd directs at an inconsistent pace, sometimes letting the camera sit on actors for lengthy pauses of inaction, other times throwing out shocking bursts of gruesome violence with little warning. It’s occasionally effective but can be frustrating at times also. Guy Pearce however is more than capable of maintaining an extended take, and his character’s abandon and rage run deep, with Pearce assuming the physical role nicely too. He gives a consistent impression of his character’s inner wounds, and the backstory teased out along the runtime is complex.
During his first stop, Eric returns to his new vehicle to find Rey (Robert Pattinson) waiting there, badly injured. Discerning that Rey is Henry’s brother and will be able to help him track the thieves, he takes Rey with him on his mission. The visual highlights of the film unquestionably come when the pair are on the road together; cinematographer Natasha Braier has created some beautifully lit, wide shots following the car along the parched highways, with the Australian setting providing some stunning landscapes. There is a strong sense of place in ‘The Rover’, and the Outback threatens to engulf the film with its vast, dry expanses, incapable of sustaining life. They are an appropriate setting for this particular story then, which also has trouble of sustaining its characters’ lives, and the realism and brutality of many of their deaths leaves a strong impression over the film.
After having Rey treated by a doctor, Eric continues on his hunt. He and Rey talk in sporadic bursts, and Eric turns Rey against his brother, who left him for dead after a botched robbery which took place just prior to the story’s commencement. Eventually they reach the house where the thieves have holed up and the inevitable showdown Robert Pattinson sports a thick, Deep Southern American accent, and plays Rey as slightly fatuous and twitchy. Opposite Eric as the strong silent type, Rey’s chatter strays on the wrong side of incomprehensible, but his character is well written. It is a promising turn for the actor, and it marks a strong direction out of his previous teen friendly fare. The relationship between Rey and Henry, and Henry’s eventual reaction to finding his brother hostile to him, is powerfully moving but shortlived – the brothers torn asunder by choices and circumstance. The darkness of the film is pretty crushing, but it is its moments of humanity – no matter how sombre – which sustain it.
The film’s score is wildly unpredictable, shifting from tortured strings and lurid synths to tribal percussion or lighter piano moments. While largely successful, composer Antony Partos’ work does have one moment over the duo’s road trip montage which feels glaringly out of place, and the dominance of the strings in the opening scene is somewhat grating.
As Rey says “Not everything has to be about somethin'”, and it is worth looking at the film through this rubric. Plot-wise it certainly comes across as much ado about not that much, but Michôd’s script takes an unflinching look at human nature, and this is its prime function. Though not as good as his instant classic debut ‘Animal Kingdom’, ‘The Rover’ is a sound follow-up. It may be unrelentingly dark and difficult to watch, but there is enough here to warrant its viewing.
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