Going Straight
It’s been said that one of the best ways to start a movie is to have a
character released from jail in the first scene. It’s a point from where
anything is possible – including the very real possibility that they might end
up back inside the slammer by the end of the film. Likely? Some pretty exciting
stuff might happen in between these two bookends...
“Going straight” films are incredibly satisfying stories, yet still an
underrated part of the prison movie genre. They’re ripe with characters trying
to redeem themselves, kicking old habits in a vain attempt to become part of
mainstream society.
Three “going straight” titles immediately leap out:
Straight Time (1978),
The Woodsman (2004) and
Sherrybaby (2007).
Straight Time is one of the (sadly) lesser-known movies from the celebrated
realist film movement of 1970s American cinema. While movies like Taxi Driver
and The Godfather stole the limelight, other quiet achievers - like Straight
Time – also helped put American movie makers, writers, producers and actors of
that era on the map.
Max (the awesome
Harry Dean Stanton) exits a prison Scene I, going directly to a
boarding house where - barely after he’s closed his door - he is visited by
sweaty, corrupt redneck parole officer Earl (played superbly by the late M.
Emmett Walsh). Max does his level best to make it in the ‘straight world’,
finding a blue collar job (with some difficulty), finding love (with the woman
at the employment agency,
Theresa Russell), and alas, falling back into his old crew when Henry (Gary
Busey in dangerously good form) comes a-calling. Ultimately things
prove too tough for Max to weather when he succumbs to ‘one last score’. The
film offers up an ending that lesser films have tried to emulate...
The Woodsman starts much the same way as Straight Time with an inmate, Walter (Kevin
Bacon) released from jail, again into a half way house with a hostile
parole officer on his tail (Mos
Def) and a blue collar love tryst. Bravely, The Woodsman takes a
distinct left turn after we discover why Walter was in jail; he is a convicted
paedophile determined to put his past behind him. The film never shies away
from the evil of Walter’s crimes, all the while scrutinising his every action.
Yet unusually, it also humanises the central character, making The Woodsman a
very mature – albeit at time an uncomfortable –viewing experience.
Sherrybaby received a theatrical release in North America and Europe yet eluded
Australia. Straight to DVD it nonetheless deserves our attention. This “going
straight” contemporary indie film features a female protagonist, Sherry, as
played by
Maggie Gyllenhaal in a role that strips her bare. The terrain might be
familiar but Gyllenhaal’s performance lifts the film to a new level. Sherry is
an ex-con with an ex-addiction and dire family secrets. She’s so anxious to
reclaim her daughter she’s about to self-sabotage. Unlearning old habits is
Sherry’s biggest challenge; she has the street smarts of a 50 year-old but the
emotional maturity of a teenager. Somewhere in between she tries to curb her
self-loathing enough to grow into being the mother for her daughter that she
herself never had.
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
