Prince Avalanche (2013)

On the road again

The set-up of Prince Avalanche is simple enough: two men work together painting lines in the road, along a part of Texas that’s been ravaged by fire. They work all day, then tent-camp overnight, only to get up and do it all over again. It’s an isolating, routine existence, filled with mundane work, with just one other person for company.

Paul Rudd (the Shape of Things, This is 40, Anchorman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) plays Alvin, the straight-laced, by-the-numbers, no-nonsense, practical leader of the team. Sporting an unfortunate mustache, and shorter hair than normal, he’s a nose-to-the grindstone worker, who’s learning German for an upcoming European trip with his unseen girlfriend. He enjoys the isolation of the work. It gives him time to think.

Emile Hirsch (Alpha Dog, Into the Wild, Killer Joe) is Lance, the younger of the two. He got the job because Alvin’s dating his sister. He's a loose cannon, who possesses no internal censor. He asks Alvin if sex with a woman after she’s had a baby feels different than before. He asks this of the man dating his sister (a sister who has a child). Unlike Alvin, working and living in the forest, away from the temptations of town (read: “women” and “booze”) makes Lance crazy. He could be Jack Black’s dimwit younger brother. His blissfully-unaware dopiness is incredibly funny.

At its heart, "Avalanche" is and odd couple/buddy film, set in the great outdoors. The men talk, argue, joke and offer each other advice. They regard one another across a curious divide. Alvin doesn’t understand how Lance has gotten to this point in his life not knowing how to gut a fish. Lance can’t believe Alvin can be out in the wilderness so long without getting laid.

Director David Gordon Green (George Washington, Undertow, and HBO’s Eastbound and Down) uses the charred, lonely landscape as the film’s third character. Shots of blackened trees, rushing streams and close-ups of paint spraying on asphalt create a moody loneliness. An imaginative score by Texas’ Explosions in the Sky also adds to the desolation.

It may not sound like much, but this wonderful little film has some magic in it. You can feel the characters, as well as their relationship, grow and change over the movie’s 94 minutes. It’s funnier than I expected, but also more moving. At times it’s quiet, but never slow. In Prince Avalanche, director Green has made another subtle, insightful, entertaining gem. His latest film Joe (starring Nicolas Cage) is already getting high marks. If it’s anywhere near as enjoyable as this film, he’s building quite a resume. 

See Prince Avalanche. It doesn't have any superheroes, massive gun fights, foreign spies, shape-shifting robots, vampires, teens killing each other for sport, or barely-clad supermodels. And that's its charm.