Hot House Consternations
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
Master Gardener (Paul Schrader) rated R 111 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
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If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: This story is driven by 3 main characters: (1) Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), a rich older woman, owner of the Gracewood Gardens estate where there’s a big annual auction for charity; she’s quite haughty and demanding; (2) Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), the chief gardener of the estate (whether he’s actually gone through the rigorous training to literally be a master gardener* or not isn’t made clear [at least to me]), but he certainly has a thorough knowledge of botany as revealed by his constant voiceover throughout the film about various flowering plants which seems to be the spoken version of the meticulous notes he keeps in a journal, possibly as another strategy to distance himself from his former White Supremacist life, illustrated by the gruesome tattoos (including Nazi swastikas) all over his arms and upper body which he covers with long-sleeve-shirts and overalls; his law-enforcement handler, Oscar Neruda (Esai Morales), after working with him to bring about the deaths of 6 of Roth’s former associates, apparently got him the job with Mrs. Haverhill; (3) Maya Core (Quintessa Swindell), Norma’s grandniece who’s lost via death her grandmother (Norma’s sister), her mother, her African father, is now a drug addict with little future; Norma agrees to take her in (despite having little love nor respect for her) in order for Narvel to teach her gardening skills in order for Maya to inherit Gracewood Gardens, to keep it in the family.
*If you’d like to know more about master gardeners you can find quite a lot in this video (18:13 [ad interrupts at 9:41]); I actually know 2 master gardeners who went through that time-consuming-training, but I doubt they’d care to be involved in what Narvel Roth confronts here beyond his plants.
As Maya arrives at the estate, she’s a bit flippant with Roth at first but takes her apprenticeship seriously even through Norma hasn’t bothered to talk to her yet; we also find Roth, who lives in a small house on the grounds, is regularly told to have dinner with Norma, followed by a night in her bed. As time goes on, a friendship develops between Maya and Roth, but when she visits him one night, ready for sex, he refuses when she tries to take his shirt off; a further complication comes for Maya—who doesn’t live on the estate—when she’s assaulted by R.G. (Jared Bankens)—Robbie Gomez—her dealer, so Roth asks Neruda to put pressure on him, then (with Maya’s help) tracks down R.G. to further give notice to never hurt Maya again. However, Norma saw Maya leaving Roth’s cabin, assumed an affair, demands they both leave, so they’re on the road staying at various motels. Eventually, Maya sees Narvel’s tattoos, is repulsed by them, but he insists he’s a changed man. He agrees to have the tats removed, they have sex; however, bad news comes in a phone call: R.G. and his buddy, Sissy (Matt Mercurio), have trashed Gracewood Gardens, so Maya and Roth return. Norma gives Roth her father’s old Luger to take revenge on the thugs, but instead he retrieves a gun from under the floor of the cabin. ⇒Roth and Maya track down R.G. and Sissy, Roth giving her a chance to shoot them, yet she can’t do it so instead he uses a hammer to break the legs of them both. Returning to Gracewood, Roth gives the Luger back to Norma, tells her the gardens can be restored for next year’s auction, he’s going to marry Maya, they’ll live in the cabin. Norma says that’s “obscene,” tries to shoot Roth but fails because, he tells her, the Luger’s both unloaded and dysfunctional, so apparently he’s fully in charge now as he celebrates with Maya at the cabin.⇐
So What? While reviews aren’t outstanding (more on that below), I was glad to find it available for streaming after most of its theatrical run and intrigued to see the latest from Schrader, known for his impactful screenplays (he wrote this one, too; not one of his absolute best) in collaborations with Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver [1976], Raging Bull [1980], The Last Temptation of Christ [1988], Bringing Out the Dead [1999]) and other directors (like Old Boyfriends [Joan Tewkesbury, 1979], The Mosquito Coast [Peter Weir, 1986], City Hall [Harold Becker, 1996]) as well as his own writer-director works such as Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), First Reformed (2017 [Oscar nomination]; review in our June 21, 2018 posting) and The Card Counter (2021; review in our December 16, 2021 posting)—you can find further info on him if you like at this site and this one (scroll down here to lists of his favorite films where I find agreement with many of his choices), but what’s amazing to me is that he wasn’t nominated for a screenplay Oscar until First Reformed because I don’t understand how he could have been looked over before that, especially for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull (you can go to specific sites to see the nominees and winners for 1976 [I can’t argue with Network {Paddy Chayefsky, director Sidney Lumet} winning, but Rocky {Sylvester Stallone, director John G. Avildsen} nominated over Taxi Driver, good grief—but, then, that year Rocky took Best Picture, Avildsen Best Director so there’s no accounting for Oscar preferences at times] and 1980 [where I can’t even begin to understand how the actual nominees pushed out Raging Bull, I’ll say easily best film of the decade, but, at least, it was a contender for Best Picture]).
So, with all of this Schrader hoopla, how does his latest film match up to so many past successes? Well … it’s got its strong points regarding solid acting throughout, especially in those lead roles, along with marvelous cinematography, both of photogenic subjects such as the gardens and even the mundane locations of motel rooms; beyond that, you’d have to decide how intrigued you’d be by this tale of redemptions and retributions. It’s ultimately conveying an uplifting message about how even those farthest from the lights of decency can make something better of themselves with determined effort (although you’ll have to weigh out your acceptance of the retribution aspects), but all-in-all, I can’t help thinking of a more light-hearted-version of Roth’s situation (because Schrader at times could use some alleviation from the consistent gloom he’s so good at conjuring up) in some lines of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s song (made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker on his 1973 Viva Terlingua album) "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother": “He drives a ’57 GMC pickup truck / Got a gun rack, ‘goat roper needs love too’ sticker.” Schrader might be horrified by this connection, although it helped me have a better after-the-fact sense of what I thought of Master Gardener, an intentionally-somber-tale, mostly intriguing to watch although it never really erupts like it seems it’s intended to do.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Master Gardener had its domestic (U.S.-Canada) release on May 19, 2023 but didn’t make much of an impact at the box-office with a mere domestic gross of $656.7 thousand (worldwide $928.2 thousand), still hanging on at 15 venues somewhere, although your best bet to find it would be via streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and other platforms for a $6.99 rental. You’ll get moderate encouragement to do so from the CCAL with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 70% while the Metacritic average score is 63%. It’s mostly a grim couple of hours (you’d expect anything less from Schrader?), yet it does point toward salvation as it progresses, not a bad message in these increasingly frustrating/polarizing times worldwide. That’s about all I can say at this point, so I’ll conclude with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, even though Schrader might not care for this tune either, the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers” (from their 1971 Sticky Fingers album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k64Cr BxCAtI, which takes us again into the realm of country & western themed/inspired-fare; however (despite being a bit tongue-in-check with this song too in contrast to Schrader’s deadly-serious-narrative), I do see some connections in these lyrics to the film’s characters (if you remember this is be understood metaphorically): “Well, when you’re sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac / Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day / I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon / And another girl can take my pain away [how Roth sees Norma and himself] / Take me down, little Susie, take me down / I know you think you’re the queen of the underground [how Roth initially sees Maya, how she initially sees herself] / And you can send me dead flowers every morning / Send me dead flowers by the mail / Send me dead flowers to my wedding / And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave [Narvel’s final sentiments toward Norma].” My musical selections this time, I easily admit, trend drastically away from the grim tone of Schrader's film, yet I see connections, oddball as they may be.
One final word on Master Gardener comes from the press kit where this film is described as “a bold new take on Schrader’s ‘man in a room’ narratives [an informal trilogy of First Reformed, The Card Counter, and this one], where a lonely figure, wrestling with his past and hiding behind his day job, waits for something to change. [… Schrader says] ‘Gardening is a particularly rich metaphor, both positively and negatively’ [… the latter referring to a flashback where a White Supremacist says it’s their job to] ‘rip out the weeds.’ “ While you decide if this all makes sense or not, just know I was happy to keep maintaining COVID-consciousness again this week by choosing something interesting on streaming rather than exposing my 75-year-old-body in a theater (especially while I’m already dealing with a week’s worth of a nagging backache despite 2 visits to the chiropractor, ice packs, heating pad) where the only thing I’d probably be interested in is Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (streaming relatively-soon, I hope). The same situation carries through to my next posting where streaming has granted me easy access to Julia Louis-Dreyfus in You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener), even though I could find it on a big screen with a lot of driving, but now I won’t have to.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
(1) Variety's 10 best films of 2023 (so far); (2) Summer blockbusters may pile up; (3) Oscars will require additional exhibition runs for potential Best Picture nominees from 2024 films.
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