Don't Come Knocking (2005)

I don't really know Wim Wenders work other than Paris Texas, so had no expectations, but I found this film a real gem. The characters are wonderful. The performances (particularly Eva Marie Saint and Jessica Lange) are amazing. The whole thing looks fantastic, and the music is perfectly judged. I read it described as a film about a man who tries to reconcile with his past - and somehow the film manages to fit in 5 or 6 complex relationships so well that you get really transported to his/their world. Jessica Lange has a scene that is one of the best scenes I have ever seen. (actually she has several, but you'll know which). Initially I wasn't sure if Sam Shephard's character showed enough charisma for you to believe his life as the lovable rogue, but everything else is so good I'm thinking I might have got that wrong - perhaps at this point in his life where he is full of guilt it would have taken away from the story if he was still a charmer. Strangely the copy I bought on Amazon was only about 1hr45 which shows less than show on IMDb, but I didn't feel I had missed anything. Perhaps it was cut after theatrical release for the better because I can't really understand why the film I watched wasn't a huge success, I loved it.

I think you gotta like Win Wnders films to enjoy this. I do and so thought it was okay ... hey, so it's no Paris Texas, that's a given but the style of the film is still pretty unique. Unfortunately I thought the characters were very thinly developed (apert from Jessica Lang's which was impressive) and hence the tension that could have been a major part of the film wasn't there. The rest are an unlikeable bunch (or unknowable). After I got over asking myself how the kid threw that lounge suite out the tiny window and then seeing that somehow the window had magically gotten bigger to try to hide that goof, I didn't mind the odd continuity flaw here and there. Unfortunately for Sam Shppard and Win Wenders, all their stuff is going to be compared to Paris and that's a tough ask. This was a pale imitation but easy enough to sit through if a bit slow in patches.

There aren't many ways to be a screenwriter, ways of delivering a story. There are fewer than the playwright has, though the stories can have more variety and structure. Sam Shepard crossed that line a long time ago. He was lucky at first, because he found a sweet spot where the limits of the portal between the two could have such restrictions that he could write about those restrictions and have them convey as some sort of existential clarity. Since then, he's been more active as a player than a playwright. But in this, he's less an actor than what used to be called a "character actor," meaning there's one type that he is famous for playing, and he just gets plugged in wherever that character is required.It must be extremely depressing to be so limited in your art and know it. The knowing is the hard part and I suppose its easy to see it as a life wasted. So what does someone in this position do? He writes about it. What else is there?So we have a story about an aging character actor who breaks away from acting. He just cannot stand it any more. So he reaches out the family he knows: his mom. And from that he learns of another family, and then a family beyond that. His real-life wife is an actress of some range and ability, someone less intelligent and perhaps as a result more committed and successful. She plays the old, short lived girlfriend he got pregnant during a shoot. Her character, though she is a waitress, is someone successfully in the world and able to cope with loneliness. Sarah Polley is a writer, actress, director who I think has enormous talent, which is a shorthand way of saying that she limits the art rather than the other way around that Shepard has. She plays a third layer of family, a sort of calm anchor, a sort of token of the other extreme from Shepard's character.That's it. That's the structure of this thing. All else are episode that set the fences and paddocks. Its pretty darned effective, if you know what it is, and touching.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

On thing you can be certain of when you watch a Wim Wenders (Buena Vista Social Club, Paris, Texas, The End of Violence) is stunning cinematography, a great soundtrack, and an emotional story.Franz Lustig's cinematography in Montana, Utah and Nevada was breathtaking. The shot inside the casino was surreal. I could watch the film with the sound off just to see the pictures.The soundtrack by Bono and T-Bone Burnett was thrilling. Wenders always has great music in his films.Then there is the story. I know exactly what Sam Shepard was feeling. Jessica Lange was super, as she always is. Sarah Polley was a thrill and really made the story. Fairuza Balk was an interesting character that I want to see again.I just like Wim Wenders and he did a great job with this Sam Shepard story.