Film Review: Prince Avalanche

Director: David Gordon Green

An American independent film that has just been released in the UK, the film was only brought to the attention of the movie world upon completion. Director David Gordon Green said he wanted to get back to his indie roots after his last few films like Compliance and The Sitter were major studio productions. Paul Rudd found the role difficult at times and was quoted as saying  "I found the biggest challenge of working on this was trying to stifle my alpha-male [masculinity]."

Alvin (Paul Rudd) is a line painter in Texas following the wild fires in 1987 that ravaged the state who employs his girlfriends brother Lance (Emile Hirsch) to help him. Alvin likes the solitude and to meditate whilst Lance is mainly interested in sleeping with women and loud rock music. Their personalities clash in the strange wilderness as they argue about their lives back home. Then film is loosely based on the Icelandic film Either Way.

Lance (Emile Hirsch) and Alvin (Paul Rudd)

The plot itself is an incredibly loose concept in this film as very little actually progresses through the movie, the story is more driven by the interactions between the characters which for the most part are wholly uninteresting. The script is key in a film based mainly on dialogue between two people and here it is severely lacking. The parts where the plot does progress are completely predictable and the characters reactions to these developments even more so.

The character of Lance is a cliché although in parts quite accurate portrayal of a late teen stuck doing a dead end job whilst Alvin is a slight over the top nerdy type. Some moments are sweet with Alvin as his heart is clearly in the right place even is his brain isnt and some of the shots of the Texas wilderness are impressive but not good enough to warrant the length of camera time devoted to them.

1.5/4 Sweet but very dull and unfunny comedy