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[Short Reviews]

SPRING FORWARD

Acclaimed by some as a return to what American independent cinema is all about, Tom Gilroy’s Spring Forward amounts to a two-man stage play in which a couple of lumpen joes spend four seasons sitting in a pick-up chewing the fat about the things that really bother a guy — you know, life, death, the meaning of it all, and, for chrissake, feelings. Soon-to-retire park worker Murph (Ned Beatty) is an old-fashioned blue-collar type, but still he’s soft enough to give ex-con-looking-for-a-break Paul (Liev Schreiber) the benefit of the doubt. So what do you know, the old guy and the young guy bond, spilling their guts about sex, women, gay rights, and karma, and you can’t help being amazed how the opinions of these tough cookies are as liberal and up-to-date in their rough-hewn way as, for example, those of your average American Independent filmmaker.

Meanwhile, life outside the van goes on — a homeless guy under the gazebo after the Fourth of July, a battered woman by roadside near Christmas — but never seems to intrude much on this lulling litany of clichés. We’ve come a long way in our portrayal of the working man from Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thief to this simpering acting exercise. Over-earnest, manipulative, wooden, and, despite the actors’ best efforts, condescending and phony as hell, Spring Forward is a fall back to what indies do at their deluded worst.

By Peter Keough

Issue Date: June 7-14, 2001