FILM

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PETE CROATTO

Blow the Man Down

IT’S TEMPTING TO CALL Blow the Man Down (now available on Amazon Prime) a haddockscented Coen Brothers’ film or a briny Brick, Rian Johnson’s 2005 nourish gem set in a high school where the cliques and formalities peel away to reveal a rotting core. Regardless of its origin story, writers-directors Danielle Krudy and Bridget Savage Cole’s film is a dark, twisty romp, a perfect distraction from cabin fever and ceaseless dread.

Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe play Mary Beth and Priscilla “Pris” Connolly, two twentysomething sisters chafing in Easter Cove, Maine, a fishing town where deadening familiarity is the other catch. The sisters’ mom has died, leaving them with no money and no prospects. After the funeral, Priscilla takes her anger out on the dishes; Mary Beth heads to the local bar, where she spots a different face. She sidles up to the guy, reaches for his cigs, and gets friendly. The night grows ugly. They drive off. He snorts some coke. She spots a small pistol in the glove box. But when Mary Beth sees a pastiche of blood and hair in the trunk, she retreats. He pursues. She ends the night by ramming a harpoon through his throat. A blood-splattered Mary Beth heads home. Shortly thereafter, the sisters are cramming the fresh corpse into a cooler and off a cliff.

Pris and Mary Beth’s disposal triggers a series of actions that inadvertently fuels a battle for the town’s soul. To create picturesque smalltown boredom requires work—from the local owner (Margo Martindale) of a really cozy bed and breakfast to the trio of busybodies (Annette O’Toole, June Squibb, and Marceline Hugot) who enforce the town’s order to the earnest, shrewd young cop (Will Brittain) who digs Pris. It’s fitting that many scenes feature someone knocking on a door, as if we’re about to be let in on a secret. The stakes get higher. Where’s the knife Pris used to cut the creep down to size? What’s with that bag of money by the door? That note the grandmotherly Squibb leaves for a wayward girl: is it a token of affection or a warning?

We don’t know where anyone stands, and Martindale’s adroit, infatuating performance as the town’s power broker sets that shifty tone. She goes from New England curt to matronly menace to moaning pathos. She’s a cornered animal, prone to strike or cower. Mary Beth, spirited and chafing to leave, isn’t the one who navigates this sordidness. Pris grabs control of the mess Mary Beth has created, covering up the tracks and cleaning the narrative. Mary Beth's fire-engine-red winter’s hat makes her an outlier in Easter Cove, a stranger. But Pris, dressed in subdued knits fit for this buttoneddown town, was born into this battle. She just doesn’t know it yet. In the end, a wry smile from a familiar face tells us everything.

Yes, there’s a Fargo influence here, with the frozen exterior shots and the giant fisherman that’s a poor replacement for Paul Bunyan. The keeping-up-appearances storyline shares much with Hot Fuzz, the 2007 Edgar Wright comedy. But Krudy and Savage Cole’s approach is far more subdued and far darker than the blithe havoc Wright envisioned. The directors have their influences, but they’ve made a movie aspiring filmmakers will likely draw upon, one where smart women of all ages get their hands dirty. Some even get away with it. [R] n