Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Franka Potente
Starring: Jake McLaughlin, Kathy Bates, Aisling Franciosi, Stephen Root, Lil Rel Howery
The German actress Franka Potente makes her debut as writer/director
not with a drama set in her homeland but in that part of the world that has
attracted so many European filmmakers over the decades - rural America.
While some filmmakers have brought an outsider's insight to this milieu,
there's always the danger that such a setting is merely being co-opted for a
cheap bit of poverty porn. Unfortunately that's the case with
Home.
Potente begins with a cliched premise, that of an ex-convict returning to
his hometown where he committed his crime. The first-time filmmaker sets
herself something of a challenge by making said crime particularly
reprehensible. 17 years ago Marvin Hacks (Jake McLaughlin) kicked an
elderly woman to death in the street. Now he's been released from prison and
has made his way home, on a skateboard of all things.
Awaiting Marvin is his mother, Bernadette (Kathy Bates), who has
stage 4 cancer and hasn't seen her son since his crime, whose victim was one
of her own friends. The movie is at its most convincing in the scenes
between Marvin and Bernadette, as the latter gradually begins to accept her
son back into her life. In these moments both characters feel like real
people rather than the white trash stereotypes they're initially sketched
as.
The same can't be said for the rest of the characters who populate
Potente's debut. The first person Marvin encounters on his return home is a
waitress who offers him a cigarette and some no strings sex. We then meet
more characters who don't remotely behave like human beings. Most laughable
of all is Stephen Root as a priest who calls his congregation
"assholes" during mass. Lil Rel Howery has a thankless role as
Bernadette's caregiver. It's one of those tone-deaf colour-blind parts, and
as such it never reckons with his first encounter with Marvin, who tackles
him to the ground believing him to be an intruder in his mother's
home.
But the most problematic aspect of Home is the scolding tone
it adopts to those townsfolk who refuse to forgive Marvin for his crime,
particularly the victim's grandchildren. The woman's granddaughter, Delta
(Aisling Franciosi), becomes an unlikely yet all too obvious love
interest for Marvin, but Potente's script is thoroughly unconvincing in
bringing these two people together. Marvin and Delta's relationship is like
a gritty cousin of that oft-mocked coupling of Zach Braff and Natalie
Portman in Garden State. While she's too beaten down by life to be considered a manic pixie dream
girl, Delta never comes off as anything greater than an unearned reward for
the film's male protagonist. Weere this film made by a male filmmaker it
would no doubt be accused of indulging in tired male fantasies, so it's
strange to see a woman continue such a trend.
Potente's film is partly salvaged by the strength of her cast. Even if the
script is too superficial to convince us we're watching real people,
McLaughlin, Franciosi and Bates do their darnedest to keep us engaged. In
his first lead role outside of TV, McLaughlin is certainly an engaging
presence, but no matter how many times his character apologises, we never
quite believe that he has been carrying this burden for 17 years. He seems
to have forgiven himself a little too easily, something the film itself is
guilty of. Even the most liberal of viewers will struggle to buy into the
idea that a town's population should find a way to forgive a man who
brutally murdered an elderly woman in their streets. And practically
everyone will be unconvinced by the notion of the victim's granddaughter
falling head over heels with her killer.
