Here’s the setup: Edward Norton plays identical (genius) twins. The protagonist twin got out of rural Oklahoma, dropped his accent, and “made it” as an academic philosopher at Brown University. The other stayed in his hometown, revolutionized hydroponic marijuana cultivation, and became, in the good twin’s words, “a criminal and all-around fuckup.”
As you may imagine, Good Twin hasn’t been ‘round in a very long time.
But events conspire to bring Good Twin back to Oklahoma and, before you know it, you’re in Doc Hollywood territory. Surely, the down home charms of country folk will speak to GT’s soul. Surely, a little twang will find its way back into his voice. Surely, there’s an Oklahoma Dreamgirl just waiting to steal his heart.
And that’s where the film puts a foot wrong. Keri Russel, as the Oklahoma Dreamgirl, doesn’t sell her part. She’s a poet who moved back to the small town because that’s the kind of thing that poets do. But every time she recites, she sounds like a woman reciting poetry and expecting you to dig it because, well, it’s poetry. She’s a poet who talks of passionate living, but brings no passion to her delivery of her life’s work. She yanked me right out of the movie.
But that’s it. That’s the one fly in the ointment. If you can overlook Russel’s performance, you get to enjoy Tim Blake Nelson as a henchman with a heart of gold, Richard Dreyfuss as a bloviating drug kingpin, Susan Sarandon as a mom who thought being a cool mom was all it took, and even The Wire’s Steve Earle as a Very Bad Man.
Will it speak to you? I don’t know. I do know that Tim Blake Nelson is a serious talent, able to bring rural America to life without trivializing it or condescending to it. I look forward to seeing what he does next.
