Spending time in this garden is no picnic
If you’re a fan of writer/director Paul Schrader, you’re bound to be disappointed by his newest film. With Master Gardener, the Taxi Driver screenwriter seems to have lost his focus, recycling old themes with no new insights and creating a picture that alternates between gothic camp and heavy-handed tedium.
Schrader here continues his “man in a room” theme of following a straight, white male protagonist who is struggling with internal angst, whether it be from a troubled past or a crisis of faith. First Reformed (2017), with its deft look at weighty spiritual themes, made my Top Ten list, and The Card Counter (2021), while less nuanced, was a serviceable follow up. But Master Gardener falls flat and lacks the emotional punch of the prior films.
Schrader’s protagonist here is Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), a former white nationalist gang member turned head gardener of the fictional Gracewood Gardens, a lavish private estate in Louisiana owned by the imperious Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Narvel has landed the plum job thanks to WITSEC, the federal witness protection program that he entered after ratting out nine fellow skinheads. Narvel’s quiet, under-the-radar life begins to unravel when Norma asks Narvel to take on her grand-niece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), as an apprentice.
Maya, however, is involved with some drug-dealing baddies, and Narvel decides to play hero and help her get clean and out of danger. That Maya is bi-racial and Narvel is a former white supremacist (with tattoos as permanent reminders) adds to the story’s tension, as does Norma’s not so veiled racist attitude toward her grand-niece. Narvel’s own complicated relationship with Norma also underpins the narrative conflict.
Unfortunately, all these elements play more like soapy melodrama rather than a thoughtful and honest look at how we can move forward from even the most heinous of past mistakes. Schrader seems here to want to make another picture exploring themes of forgiveness and redemption, but instead only repeats ideas from his previous, better work. Filled with stilted dialog (“I’m just a gardener who used to be someone else, but now I’m your friend,” Narvel says at one point to Maya with grave earnestness) and over-the-top performances, the picture also strains credulity at almost every turn. A fantasy sequence, in which lush, beautiful gardens grow and thrive when things are going well for Maya and Narvel and then wither and die when they aren’t, feels contrived and laughable in its obvious symbolism.
As for the performances, Weaver chews the scenery with such vigor that you have to wonder if Schrader directed her to do so or if she made the choice simply to inject some life into the humorless proceedings. Edgerton fares somewhat better, but his deadpan, serious voice-over narration reading from Narvel’s journal entries (another echo of First Reformed and Card Counter) further adds to the film’s self-important tone. Swindell doesn’t get much to do besides be the catalyst for Narvel’s redemptive reckoning, and their 22 year age gap makes their romantic pairing, which follows one of the most unrealistic and poorly written sex scenes in cinematic history, seem both ridiculous and icky.
The film’s ending, too, feels improbable and tonally off from what’s preceded it, creating an odd disconnect. What the conclusion does succeed at, though, is making us glad this slog of a picture is finally over.
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Master Gardener opens today at Bay Area theaters.
