| Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: May 19, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
29
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Even when it falters, Master Gardener speaks from a place the filmmaker has always worked, with one foot in the character-building of “slow cinema,” and the other in spasms of violence. It may be hard to buy where this movie lands. But even an unstuck landing isn’t enough to un-recommend it.
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SlashfilmSep 17, 2022
Even if Master Gardener can feel like a bit of a potboiler moral drama, the heat generated is proof that Schrader can still bring the fire. The filmmaker grapples thornily and thoughtfully with difficult issues and destructive people, finding new ways to approach the questions that still haunt him.
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What (a kinder and gentler?) Schrader has crafted with Master Gardener is a fable of redemption. And there lies the deviation. For all its looming menace and potential violence, not to mention what the biracial Maya will make of Narvel’s past - a past literally written on his body - Master Gardener is sweet, and, horror of horrors, hopeful.
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The beauty in Schrader’s work has always been in the relationship between penance and absolution, which feels noticeably absent here. It’s a shame because the trio of Edgerton, Swindell, and Weaver deliver strong performances, and Devonte Hynes’ romantic score with a slight edge of sombreness is nicely atmospheric, but the film’s third act feels too neat and unconvincing, particularly given the sharpness of the conclusion in Schrader’s last two films.
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As the film shifts away from the mansion and into a pretty pat subplot about far-right goons and drug addiction, it grows less like a prize-winning flower and more like a clump of unsightly weeds, further sunk by underwhelming work from Schrader’s regular cinematographer Alexander Dynan.
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Ultimately, Narvel is the fascist as liberal fantasy. Someone with access to skilled violence, who can unleash it at whim. It’s such a pity that a screenwriter who used to excel at delineating the intricacies of male insecurity and poison now comes out with such a one-dimensional character.
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The writer-director behind The Card Counter and First Reformed makes a misstep here, courtesy unlikely characters and sometimes mystifying plot changes. Luckily, stars Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver are in top form, which is enough to keep a viewer happily occupied for the first hour.
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Master Gardener is the third film in writer-director Paul Schrader’s redemption trilogy. The series includes 2017′s “First Reformed,” which is good, and 2021′s “The Card Counter,” which is not. Unfortunately, the trilogy ends with its worst entry, an excruciatingly slow white-savior narrative that aims to provoke yet does nothing but bore.
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