Richard Linklater is too rarely in the conversation about great American directors. He’s been respected since he debuted with “Slacker,” but many of his independent films were too experimental to find audiences, while some of his Hollywood efforts were too broad for critics. Yet who can point to a stronger last three films than Linklater?
“Before Midnight” seamlessly caught up with the saga of Jesse and Céline in their middle age, losing none of the wit and spontaneity that marked the previous incarnations of the romance between Hawke and Delpy. “Boyhood” will be remembered as one of the best films of the decade, portraying the passing of time with a patience and generosity almost unthinkable in American film today. And Linklater’s last film, “Everybody Wants Some!!” imbued nuance and questioning into the type of characters too often denied them, resulting in one of the most purely fun and charming films of the year.
Now, he’s returning with the intriguing “Last Flag Flying” starring Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne. Here’s the synopsis from NYFF, where it will be the opening night film:
In Richard Linklater’s lyrical road movie, as funny as it is heartbreaking, three aging Vietnam-era Navy vets—soft-spoken Doc (Steve Carell), unhinged and unfiltered Sal (Bryan Cranston), and quietly measured Mueller (Laurence Fishburne)—reunite to perform a sacred task: the proper burial of Doc’s only child, who has been killed in the early days of the Iraqi Invasion. As this trio of old friends makes its way up the Eastern seaboard, Linklater gives us a rich rendering of friendship, a grand mosaic of common life in the USA during the Bush era, and a striking meditation on the passage of time and the nature of truth. To put it simply, Last Flag Flying is a great movie from one of America’s finest filmmakers.
The film is doubly exciting as a spiritual sequel (both are adaptations of novels by Darryl Ponicsan) to Hal Ashby’s “The Last Detail,” an underappreciated classic that hopefully “Last Flag Flying” will bring new audiences to. Ashby’s film was a masterpiece of tone, finding notes of sadness and regret hiding underneath expressions of male bravado, a combination Linklater has explored before.
After playing the NYFF, the film will be released in theaters by Amazon on November 3rd.
