Review: The Rover

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It's nearly impossible to classify The Rover into any genre. I've been telling my friends it's a dark, morbid, Australian, dystopian, neo-Western. Or that it's a cross between The Road, Mad Max, and The Proposition with hints of Once Upon a Time in the West thrown in there with that barren, silent countryside that is the Australian Outback. I think director/writer David Michod is well aware of all these influences but he refuses to let any of them define his own bleak tale of a future, lawless humanity. After all, Michod spent the early part of his career in film as the editor of Inside Film magazine, stretching his experience beyond filmmaking and into journalistic and academic writing. I'm assuming the knowledge he gained from this has made him acutely aware of genre tropes; especially considering his first film Animal Kingdom in 2010 which tackled the Godfather-esque story of a young man introduced into his criminal family run by his grandmother. In that film as well there are hints of multiple genres and references to Coppola just as there are moments of The Rover that feel very much like Peckinpah. 

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And yet, Michod successfully crafts his own feature amidst a crowd of influences. As an Australian, it must have been a no-brainer for him to use the Australian Outback as the backdrop for the simple story of a man (Guy Pearce) determined to retrieve his stolen car. But the Outback isn't simply a backdrop. As in The Proposition, the Outback defines the scenes and settings as the hellish heat and dust turns the characters into grimy, disheveled shadows of human beings; further emphasizing the current moral and physical state of the land's occupants. Just about all of them listless, hollow figures ready to turn and kill you at a moments notice if it means gaining anything by it or simply to avoid being killed. The cinematography that provides our point of view in this setting softly pans through each scene or remains stationery. It's a simple filming tactic but seems ironic when paired with the sudden, violent killings throughout the film. In such a dramatic environment, you'd think our point of view would take on a shaky, hectic style. Instead, the calm point of view makes the violence and danger of the story and land that much more disturbing, threatening, and unpredictable. In this regard, Michod definitely mimics Peckinpah's spaghetti Western style. Conversely, the soundtrack is an eerie cacophony of stringed instruments and what often sounds like metal grating on metal. So the point of view may be calm, but the soundtrack is hostile to the senses and mimics what should be the emotional and physical reaction to the violence on screen. In all, the setting, cinematography, and soundtrack compose a strange mixture of combating styles.

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If it wasn't for Pearce's "Rover" character, Eric, there wouldn't be a point to any of this. As you can see from the image at the top, Eric's appearance alone suggests a defeated, tortured soul, and if it wasn't for his stone-cold, piercing eyes, you would expect nothing less. As the tagline for the film on the poster says "fear the man with nothing left to lose," Eric embodies that idea. In a land that is deprived of all hope, comfort, and decency, he retains a hardened hatred and determination to get his stolen car back. Thus one could say that the film's qualities are representations of his character: the harsh Outback a reflection of his appearance, the soundtrack an echo of his tumultuous psychology, and the cinematography a vision of his insensitivity to killing, death, and violence. This is definitely one of Pearce's best performance's to date. Although he does not transform himself into characters to the length that actor's like Daniel-Day Lewis and Sean Penn do, he throws himself into every role that he is given. Whether or not that character is much different from any others he's portrayed, he plays the role with the utmost intensity, and this one takes the cake in that regard. He's scary as hell. And yet, a couple of times throughout the film, we see him almost break down. During these times we see him nearly trembling with anger, but at the same time, tears begin to well up in his eyes. It's thanks to these scenes that Eric becomes more than a hardened, hateful man. That character is quite common in movies whether it's a good or bad guy and fairly easy to pull off thematically and acting wise. But through Michod's directing and Pearce's acting, we see holes in this character and a piece of what he once was before "the collapse" of Australia's society and government. 

Before The Rover I'd never seen anything with Robert Pattinson in it. I knew the actor notorious for being nothing more than a pale, lifeless vampire in the Twilight series was trying to break out of type casting, and The Rover was one of his first big breaks aside from a few earlier flops and David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. Well I am pleased to say that Pattinson did a fine job as Rey, the dim witted kid and brother of the man who stole Pearce's car. Pearce comes across Rey and after discovering his connection to his stolen car forces Rey to lead him to where his car might be. Rey's innocence of mind and experience makes for an interesting comparison to Eric. "If you're going to survive you're going to need to learn how to fight or your death will come real soon," Eric tells Rey. Even though Eric should be Rey's enemy, it becomes clear that Rey begins to look up to Eric in almost a father-son kind of way, and as the film draws to an end, Eric arguably begins to feel the same way about Rey. But as the end and the rest of the film shows, such relations with others, brother, father, or son, become too costly and meaningless in the end when your own survival becomes most important.

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At one point, Eric asks a man "what do you think of every morning when your feet touch the ground? Before they touch the ground?" Essentially, what drives you to get up every morning, to go on living? It's strange that Eric would ask such a question because it doesn't seem like he has any reason. For now he may have the goal of getting his car back, but even when he had his car it didn't seem like he had anything. Some seem to enjoy the lawlessness of the land and the freedom to kill, steal, and terrorize others. But Eric does not seem to be one of those people. Even though he kills and doesn't seem to have a problem in doing so, he takes no joy in the act. So why go on living in a place where possessions and people no longer have worth or reward beyond what you can take? The Rover doesn't seem to offer an answer, but it's a question I believe many of us could ask ourselves living in this day and age surrounded by anything we could need, above and beyond what we need to physically survive.