A Frontmezzjunkies TIFF film review: Martin McDonagh unleashes his razor-sharp dialogue on political mischief, mortality and an extraordinary friendship in the surreal isolation of Easter Island.
By Ross
For months, I have been planning my trip to Chile this winter, so finding myself cinematically transported to Easter Island with Martin McDonagh‘s latest film was an unexpected little bonus in my TIFF movie schedule. I wasn’t quite prepared, however, for the glorious collision of political mischief, poetic profanity, existential dread, and the writer/director’s wonderfully outrageous sense of humour that awaited me in “Wild Horse Nine.” Set in the early 1970s, against the backdrop of CIA interference in Chilean politics, the film sends two American operatives, Chris and Lee, to Easter Island on what appears to be a holiday, although there are rather more personal matters on the itinerary, involving loyalty, promises made, and the inconvenient business of mortality. McDonagh, who writes and directs, has an unmistakably wicked command of dialogue, sending a seemingly casual exchange between two old friends careening into an outrageous philosophical detour about death, sometimes within a single sentence. It’s a deliciously absurd road trip watching these two men contemplate the consequences of destabilizing a government while taking in the extraordinary landscape and the ancient moai. I was readily enjoying the view, even before the trouble had properly begun.
At the centre of this glorious verbal free-for-all are John Malkovich as Chris, an eccentric, terminally ill CIA operative, and Sam Rockwell as Lee, the younger agent assigned to work alongside him. Their chemistry is exceptional, with the two actors finding a wonderfully unpredictable rhythm as Chris’s peculiar honesty and Lee’s increasingly strained attempts to look after and protect his old friend continually collide. Malkovich (“Dangerous Liaisons“) is a revelation, delivering a performance filled with eccentricity, weary, wonderful wisdom, and a seemingly bottomless supply of verbal surprises. Chris is writing a book about his life, an undertaking that seems to have taken on a particular urgency, although everyone around him has very particular opinions about which details should be included, which should stay private, and which should never be put down on paper. His observation that “a good memoir never begins at the beginning” is perfectly in keeping with a man whose understanding of chronology, morality and social convention has taken some rather unusual turns. Then there is his reassurance that he should start with “dinosaurs… no one is going to expect that.” Malkovich makes every peculiar exchange feel entirely natural, even when the conversation wanders somewhere nobody else could possibly have anticipated. Rockwell (Broadway’s American Buffalo) gives the film its emotional grounding as Lee, a man whose loyalty to Chris is solid, but complicated by the history they share and the violence that has shaped their work. His performance carries a deep sense of unease and affection beneath the foul-mouthed exchanges, and the two actors make an exceptionally entertaining comic double act, with the depth of their friendship giving all those verbal fireworks a surprisingly poignant edge.
But Chris’s illness gradually brings a poignant edge to the film’s outrageous humour. He dives into the subjects of cancer, heaven, and death with the same irreverent candour he brings to everything else. “My cancer has a lisp,” he explains, surprising himself in a wonderfully outrageous bit of McDonagh wordplay, and his insistence on maintaining “always the perfect level of paranoia” seems an especially useful philosophy for anyone working in the CIA. Chris has become increasingly preoccupied with making sense of his life, his Catholic upbringing, and the damage he has helped inflict. His Catholic beliefs add an unexpected complication to his thinking about death, leaving Lee to navigate an increasingly difficult promise as the purpose of their journey seems to shift along with Chris’s own recollections. The two young women he encounters, Monica and Alicia, played beautifully by Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas, bring another perspective to his increasingly unsettled world. Their combative conversations and leftist political convictions challenge Chris’s assumptions about the world he has helped shape, while creating fresh tensions with Lee. Steve Buscemi (“Fargo“) is perfectly cast as their handler, MJ, bringing his own particular brand of dry comic authority to the proceedings. Tom Waits, as Chris’s brother Jim, adds another intriguing presence, while Parker Posey appears as Marge, Lee’s wife. Each encounter adds another peculiar wrinkle to the film’s mix of humour, suspicion, and emotional reckoning.
Easter Island also becomes an essential part of the film’s atmosphere, with its extraordinary landscape offering a surreal backdrop for the increasingly strange business unfolding between these characters. The cinematography by Ben Davis (“The Banshees of Inisherin“) captures the island’s striking isolation and the monumental presence of the moai, lending a surprising weight to the shenanigans unfolding between the two men. The visuals allow the scenery to become part of the film’s peculiar sense of scale and dislocation, as production designer Denis Schnegg (“Annihilation“) helps establish the film’s distinctive and eclectic world, giving the setting a western-tinged quality that sits intriguingly alongside the Easter Island aesthetic, political intrigue, and the characters’ increasingly absurd philosophical conversations. Carter Burwell’s score adds another layer of atmosphere, with its droll, haunting quality supporting the film’s shifts between comedy and melancholy. Even the moments when Chris and Lee are simply looking out across the landscape at the “five ugly sisters and a dwarf” seem to carry a strange mixture of wonder, nostalgia, and foreboding. McDonagh clearly understands the peculiar magic of this setting, allowing the island’s statuesque beauty to sit alongside the ridiculousness of the men who have found themselves there.
The screenplay is filled with the kind of sharp, gleefully profane exchanges that have become a McDonagh trademark, with the humour often veering into gloriously unexpected territory. The film’s political and historical backdrop gives these exchanges a darker resonance, with the CIA’s involvement in destabilizing a leftist government providing an uncomfortable reality that the comedy cannot entirely conceal. The second act loses some momentum, and a few of the secondary characters and situations, including Posey’s Marge and the threat lurking outside their door, could have been given more room to develop. Still, the central performances and McDonagh’s extraordinary dialogue kept me thoroughly engaged, with Malkovich and Rockwell finding the humour, affection and underlying strain in every exchange.
“Wild Horse Nine” is an exceptionally funny, melancholic, and superbly acted film, with McDonagh (Hangman) finding plenty of room for absurdity in political commentary, professional loyalty, and the elaborate stories people tell themselves about the lives they have lived. Chris’s illness gives those questions a very human urgency, and his determination to put his experiences into a book becomes an increasingly fascinating part of the film’s emotional journey. As I prepare for my own trip to Chile, I will certainly be packing a few images of Easter Island with me, although I suspect my visit won’t involve quite so much CIA paranoia, morphine, or philosophical discussion about dinosaurs and death. But who knows. Chris may insist that a good memoir never begins at the beginning, but his time on the island has forced both men to confront the work they’ve done, the lives they’ve chosen to lead, and the extraordinary weight of a promise made between friends. And beneath all the profanity, absurdity, and laughter, that is what gives this wonderfully strange film its unexpected heart.
