Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Max Walker-Silverman
Starring: Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, Benja K. Thomas, Marty Grace
Dennis, John Way
Writer/director Max Walker-Silverman's feature debut
A Love Song has the structure of a road movie, with a
woman encountering various characters while living in a caravan attached
to her car. Except, here the caravan never actually moves, the
supporting characters come to our protagonist. Think
Nomadland
with a puncture.
Like the aging central character of that Oscar winning film,
A Love Song's protagonist is a woman who has acquired enough skills through her
life to make her self-sufficient. The difference here is that Faye (Dale Dickey) would trade her independence for some romantic companionship in a
heartbeat.
Pitching her caravan in the gorgeous surrounds of a lake in Colorado,
the landscape and sky stretching out before her like a yawning giant's
shawl, Faye awaits the arrival of Lito (Wes Studi), a childhood
friend whom she describes as a man with "a small silver car and a big
black dog." Faye never verbally admits to so much, but we can tell by
the smile on her face that she hopes something substantial might come of
this reunion.
While waiting, Faye spends her time catching crabs with a makeshift
bait, listening to country songs on a radio that "always seems to play
the right song," helping locals with car trouble, dining with a lesbian
couple, and using two textbooks to identify the bird noises and the
stars in the sky. She doesn't realise it, but while waiting for a
potential companion she's finally growing comfortable in her own
company.
When Lito finally arrives, followed a day later by a letter that
announces he's on the way, the two instantly bond over childhood
memories. They have a charming rapport, but also a hesitant awkwardness.
Maybe they were meant to be together at one point in time, but have
since missed the boat. Walker-Silverman portrays this not through any
dialogue but by blocking, the proximity of his characters to one another
at key moments speaking volumes. They're close together in easy
interactions like enjoying ice cream together, but when it comes down to
figuring out where this is headed the director places his leads a
distance away from each other, as though they're two gunfighters about
to settle a dispute on main street.
Dickey and Studi are two actors that have been specifically typecast,
she for her rugged looks, he for his ethnicity, so it's a delight to see
them play two very everyday people. They look like Americans rather than
American movie stars, their faces weather beaten but beautiful, much
like the land around them. When Lito presents Faye with a bunch of
flowers that most of us would mistake for weeds, it sums up the film's
theme of recognising beauty where you find it.
Ultimately, A Love Song is a love story about falling in
love with yourself. Not in any narcissistic kind of way, but in the way
so many widows rediscover themselves after their husbands have passed.
The film has several memorable moments in which Faye shares the screen
with other people, but its most affecting passages are those that see
her alone in a beautiful wilderness breathing in the clean air.
A Love Song suggests that some us need a companion, but
some of us just need to climb to the top of a mountain, to experience
true solitude it and find that, actually, it's okay to be alone.
