..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Joshua
Directed by George Ratliff

George Ratliff, with a co-director, made a doc (Hell House) that predates the current parade of religious right questioning docs with the courage of objectivity, allowing the audience to take a position themselves instead of having it force fed to them.

But George wanted, it seems, to make feature films. And he digested every major boo-in-the-house stylist in the movie business before coughing all of the master’s up in his Sundance Dramatic Competition premiere, Joshua. .But for all the style – and it is endless – the question of Joshua is whether there is anything much else there. And there is. A great, but expected performance by Sam Rockwell. A great, but expected ass on Vera Farmiga. (That’s not really fair... she does a very good job in a way over the top performance that counts as much on her blue eyes and ever growing cheek bones as anything else.) Really nice turns by Celia Weston (an expected performance), Michael McKean (so good in these cameos) and Dallas Roberts (unexpected, playing his dry beats into high-toned New York gay in a very smart way). And a really creepy kid in Jacob Kogan.

But here’s the problem... like Vagina Dentata: The Motion Picture, you are so aware of the creep factor from the very beginning, as Ratliff and his composer Nico Muhly and the ghosts of all the directors of all of the shots Ratliff steals to make it so creepy scream at the audience that the big scare is about to come. And it is a long road to this creepy Tipperary.

I can’t say I disliked the film. But like so many films at Sundance this year, it lacks a clear focus. The question of whether Joshua is evil or misunderstood in the midst of the arrival of a stressful second child is the kind you answer at the end of a second act (or earlier) so you can make a movie about what it means. Instead, we get teased until the end. (No, I will not reveal the answer.)

But even though I could embrace and enjoy the déjà vu of the experience – and I did, a bit – I wanted it to go somewhere. And Ratliff’s perfect compositions (with cinematographer Benoit Debie) were, it felt, more the point than the mystery or the thrills or the basic storytelling.

It’s funny, because last night, I was talking about a movie I consider very underrated, Bob Balaban’s Parents, in relation to Teeth. Parents works the “is it or isn’t it” premise in a similar way, but has more fun with the perception of the child. And for me, it goes off the rails in the third act when it answers the question of whether the parents of the title are actually cannibals with an all too easy result. Here, we rarely get anything from the kid. And since Rockwell’s character is in the dark and Farmiga’s character is head-fucked, the question doesn’t seem like a conceit so much as a cheat. Even that grandmother who wants the boy to get religion doesn’t have any real reason for that other than her own personal love of Christ. It’s ok, but it’s just not very dramatic.

If you want to do a hyperstylized thriller/character piece, I think you need to come up with a really great answer to make it all work. Heathers is one of the classics, where in the third act the question of just how crazy the Christian Slater character is and whether Winona Ryder’s character can keep up is answered in the voice of the entire film, inevitable but surprising and delightful.

Anyway... near miss...

It mostly reminded me how much I would still love to see

really break out. And how Ms. Farmiga could make a career of being the next Thinking Man’s Sex Symbol.

As for Mr. Ratliff... let’s see the next one. I will be expecting less imitation and more George to add up to some really fine work.

- David Poland