ronald h
"The Living" can't be considered a great major work, but writer/director Jack Bryan has a pretty good handle on the elements of film noir—suspense, probable murder, and most importantly, a really nasty bad guy, played with gusto by Chris Mulkey.
The story is simple. Teddy (Fran Kranz) has physically abused his wife Molly (Jocelin Donahue) one too many times, and she orders him to move out of their house and into a cheap motel. Molly's brother Gordon (Kenny Wormald), who lives with their mother (Joelle Carter) is angry and wants to protect his sister. A friend recommends an ex con who will do away with Teddy for the impressive sum of $2,000. Teddy drives from Pennsylvania to Mississippi to pick up Howard the hitman (Mulkey), who, to put it mildly, turns out to be full of surprises.
Meanwhile, Teddy and Molly gradually start to make up. Teddy is not played as an angry, abusive jerk, but a rather unassuming fellow who has blackouts when he drinks. He claims to not even remember hitting Molly. He apologizes profusely and begs her forgiveness.
The acting and direction are straightforward and unembellished: no over-emoting or scenery chewing, no flashy camera work.
Mulkey is impressive. He has a respectable resume to begin with, and here, he just totally inhabits his despicable character. You'll hate him, but you'll find yourself laughing uncomfortably at him.
Of course, things go badly wrong. Don't expect any insightful character development here. Everything is in service to the plot, which is presented in such a literal, straight ahead fashion that it's disarming.
This is a good indie effort that's worth a watch, as long as you remember that film noir often requires the bar to be lowered a bit. It ain't MacBeth. It is what it is.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
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Audience Member
Awakening from an alcohol induced black out, Teddy discovers he has severely beaten his wife, Molly. As he seeks her forgiveness, she struggles with a possible future together. Absent a father's protection, her brother's humiliation over not being able to defend his sister quickly turns to hate. In desperation, Gordon seeks out and hires an ex-con to kill Teddy setting forth an unstoppable sequence of shocking events.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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Serge L
Low life people have honour too. Englishes having rebelled against the church, invade america in particular, have a tendancy to be psychopathic. Here is another example, very realistic, and probably based on a true story (unknown but surely true). The story is fairly simple. Wife get punched in the face and body, gains lots of karma. Enough to put hubby in the dog house for a week or so. Hubby makes amends, so our psychopathic couple get back together. However, her psychopathic mother and psychopathic brother have some family honour and make hubby pay as much as they can. A psychopathic killer get hired and brings us to the hilarious (and predictable) ending. The dead don't suffer. The living do. And the englishes are the best sufferers ever.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/20/16
Full Review
Audience Member
Low life people have honour too. Englishes having rebelled against the church, invade america in particular, have a tendancy to be psychopathic. Here is another example, very realistic, and probably based on a true story (unknown but surely true). The story is fairly simple. Wife get punched in the face and body, gains lots of karma. Enough to put hubby in the dog house for a week or so. Hubby makes amends, so our psychopathic couple get back together. However, her psychopathic mother and psychopathic brother have some family honour and make hubby pay as much as they can. A psychopathic killer get hired and brings us to the hilarious (and predictable) ending. The dead don't suffer. The living do. And the englishes are the best sufferers ever.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
this one is too held up by forced casting and awkward line delivery. its almost like you are seeing the rehershals
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
What I do isn't about the people that die. It's about the people that are left alive. They get the short end of the stick, as far as I'm concerned.
"The Living" is a basic revenge film in which the reprisal turns out quite differently than initially intended. A social drama about domestic violence and alcoholism, although I started wondering after a while how critical this alcohol problem was. The evolution to this violent abuse wasn't discussed. How could it come to this? Were there already signs of an oncoming problem? And were there cases of domestic violence already in the past? You're kept in the dark when it comes to these relevant considerations.
The first image, accompanied by music from The de Luca Brothers, is that of some empty beer bottles scattered around on the ground and an unconscious Teddy (Fran Kranz), who apparently is sleeping it off. Upon awakening he finds out he has a bloody hand and his wedding ring is missing, after which he becomes aware something terrible happened the previous night. The fact that his young wife Molly (Jocelin Donahue) is no longer present in the house, confirms his suspicion. Molly has fled to her parents' home where her mother Angela (Joelle Carter) and brother Gordon (Kenny Wormald) still live. When Teddy arrives there and Molly returns with him despite everything that happened, Angela threatens to use her shotgun and shoot Teddy. Simultaneously she's also furious about Gordon defending his sister in a lax way. Mad about what happened to his sister, Gordon takes the advice of a workmate (who knows someone who also knows someone else who could teach a person a lesson), and he goes looking for this person to solve the problem once and for all.
Unfortunately this is, despite some brilliant performances, a fairly banal story with a predictable storyline and no surprising conclusion. The whole film actually just shows the emotional relationship between a few people. First, the fragile and broken relationship between Molly and Teddy. Molly makes it clear to Teddy that he has to do everything to make up for the incurred suffering. What bothered me in this part of the story, was twofold. Teddy doesn't really resemble a typical alcoholic who tends to use violence against his wife. He looks remarkably fresh after an evening of heavy drinking (with a solid blackout as a result) and seemingly he doesn't have problems with staying away from booze. And Molly didn't need much time to forgive him again. Teddy didn't have to pay enormously for his actions. But I'm convinced this is most common in this kind of situations.
The second relationship arising in this film is that between the timid, uncertain Gordon and Howard (Chris Mulkey), the psychopathic killer who isn't afraid of murdering someone for a few dollars. This subtle interplay between these two opposites was the most fascinating of the whole movie. Magisterial acted by both. The realization that slowly grows to Gordon that he may have took the wrong decision. Howard is someone who is straightforward and clearly takes matters in hand to finalize it. There's a key moment in a restaurant where I thought the film was going to escalate into a spiral of violence. But to my surprise it remained to that single moment and the impact was limited to the fact that Gordon was more uncertain and scared to dead of Howard. Mulkey is brilliant as the crazy killer. Top performance.
But as I mentioned earlier, these superb performances can't cover up that the essential substance of this film is kind of feeble. A succession of obvious events and a simple story with no undue risks taken. Domestic violence is usually a complex psychological story. In "The Living" this is elaborated rather simplistic. Even the injuries Molly had after the quarrel, didn't exactly look realistic (it was more a result of a makeup party that got out of hand). Thanks to the charismatic Mulkey, this film was worth to watch.
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Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
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