Prince Avalanche

Cast of Characters:

Alvin - Paul Rudd

Lance - Emile Hirsch

Director - David Gordon Green

Screenplay - David Gordon Green

Based on the film Either Way by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson

Rated R for some sexual content

      Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch star together in David Gordon Green's Prince Avalanche, the American remake of the 2011 Icelandic film Either Way.

      Following a forest fire that desolated an isolated, small Texas town, highway road worker Alvin (Paul Rudd) and his girlfriend's brother Lance (Emile Hirsch) are hired to repair the area's land and roads. They paint yellow lanes on the roads and mulch gardens devastated by the fire. This goes on for days and nights.

      Due to their polar opposite personalities, we expect a conflict to eventually arise. Alvin loves the outdoors and loves his alone time away from the girlfriend ("I reap the rewards of solitude", he says). Lance couldn't be any more different. He's basically your everyday hit up the town, grab whatever babe you can find and then nail her like there's no tomorrow type of loner. He may even be "learning disabled" as Alvin writes to his girlfriend. He appears to have no interest in the great outdoors, but it seems to make him horny anyway.

      There was a time when David Gordon Green was a unique and gifted filmmaker.  Then he decided to venture into goofball stoner comedy territory by filming Pineapple Express, Your Highness, and The Sitter. Pineapple Express was just okay. I hated Your Highness, and The Sitter was somewhere in between. There's certainly nothing wrong with a goofball stoner comedy if done right (This Is the End), it's just not the right fit for Green. Scorsese's one of my favorite directors ever, but I'd never wanna see his take on Dumb and Dumber. All that considered, Prince Avalanche marks a return to form for Green, and in a way he's able to combine both his beautiful artistic side with a bit of the goofiness he tried to go for in his past three films. While there are certainly some beautifully shot images and some sharp and funny dialogue (there's a great little argument between Rudd and Hirsch about their so called "Equal Time Boombox Agreement"), this film is mostly driven by two outstanding performances from Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. Paul Rudd has been able to pay his bills comfortably from starring in the usual Apatow comedies we've seen over the past ten years. Here, though, he tones it down with a restrained performance that plays off Hirsch's dopey, sex crazed Lance perfectly. As for Hirsch, I've been a fan of his work before, but really only for his dramatic work (I didn't like The Girl Next Door, the closest thing to a comedy I've seen him in). To see him pull off such a quirky character as effectively as he does here was a joy to watch. The most intriguing aspect about both characters, though, was that as different as they were in personality, in a way they were similar in how sad and lonely they seemed to be deep down. Two scenes in particular really point that out. One features Lance going on about his weekend with all the highs and lows that came with it. It's a funny scene at times, but also sad when you realize Lance really has nothing else going on for him other than the hopes of "Getting some puss." The second scene features Rudd following a terrific cameo appearance by Joyce Payne (a real life survivor of the fire). He stands all alone in the midst of a house, completely destroyed by the fire, and pretends to come home to a functioning house with a family. Both scenes are really the strongest in the film and are beautiful, funny and sad all at once.

      It's not Green's best work, but it's certainly nice to see him get back to his roots with a small film such as this. Rudd and Hirsch are superb together and despite the occasional goofiness, Green has put together a beautiful film with some much needed heart and human emotion that I haven't seen in a film of his since Snow Angels. I give Prince Avalanche an A- (★★★½).

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