Film Review: Master Gardener

Director: Paul Schrader
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell
Running time: 107 minutes

Despite being five decades deep into a prolific career as a writer and director, Paul Schrader has never shied away from tackling contemporary issues head on through his films. Ruminating on anti union tactics deployed by corporations in his directorial debut Blue Collar, or the masculine rage of boxer Jake LaMotta in his script for Raging Bull. Over the past six years his work has formed a loose trilogy that have pointed their gaze at the sins of America’s past: capitalisms destruction of the natural environment and the forces that facilitate it, grisly war crimes committed by the army during the Iraq war, and now with Master Gardener — the country’s bloodied legacy of white supremacy and colonialism.

Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) is a horticulturalist employed by the immensely wealthy Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver) to manage the grand gardens residing in her family’s estate, subtly highlighted as a former slave plantation. His life is consistent with the barren austerity in which Schrader’s characters often lead: rarely discussing their personal life, revealing no secrets about their murky past, residing in total isolation from everyone else, living by a strict doctrine and narrating their own life through a series of contemplative journal entries. It is the totality of these elements that form the baseline for a large chunk of Schrader’s directorial output, a formula that most fans, dedicated or not, will be familiar with. Haverhill asks him to take on her grandniece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) — a troubled youth with a drug problem and an abusive boyfriend — as an apprentice so she can learn how to manage the estate when the time comes. A bond is slowly formed between them much to Haverhill’s disdain.

In the film’s early moments, it feels serene and almost idyllic, but glimpses of menacing flashbacks — although not as harrowing as the Abu Ghraib ones in The Card Counter — provide a feeling of general unease. Rapidly the uncertainty builds, and we are left with the reality of Roth’s horrifying past: his former existence as a former neo nazi involved in a far right militia group. Through snippets of conversation, it is clear that his relationship to the unnamed organisation ended due to his cooperation with the CIA, which saw him provide evidence against nine others; allowing him to spend less time in jail and start life anew. His past remains scarred onto him through a myriad of tattoos across his body, acting as a constant, haunting reminder to his diabolical past.

With the thematic element of white supremacy being at the core of the film, the initial presumption is to expect a dark and gritty thriller. But Schrader eschews expectations and provides something lighter and more absurd, delving into a style of film that is rare from the frequently nihilistic and confrontational director. Like many of Schrader’s films it is ultimately a film about redemption, about how men haunted by even the most horrifying of pasts can transform themselves in the eyes of themselves, their peers, or even God. However, despite the contradiction between the narrative elements and the film’s lighter tone, the film never tries to make you feel sympathetic to Roth’s past. As always Schrader strips the film of sentimentality, causing the film to be devoid of any cloying melodrama that attempts to make you feel sorry for him. The gaze of the film, like the previous two films, remains precise and cold, never leading the audience down a predetermined moralism.

Schrader pushes his late style of austere aesthetics to new levels with Master Gardener. Building on the raw minimalism of The Card Counter, he keeps the number of locations and characters to the absolute minimum number possible. Stripping everything back, crafting something that feels incredible lightweight and sparse. Character’s talk in barren motel rooms, work in empty greenhouses and wander the lonely streets of the American suburbs; his vision of America slowly becoming more barren and dilapidated with each new film. Much like David Cronenberg’s recent masterpiece Crimes of the Future, this film feels like it was made by someone nearing the end of their career: the stakes are incredibly low, people speak in a stilted, unnatural way and the elliptical nature of the plot — which sees Schrader give virtually no backstory to events and characters — might make it hard for some to digest.

Master Gardener is a film that almost collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. It feels like a lost version of the American future, a more optimistic reconciliation in the incredibly volatile socio-political relations in the country. However, Schrader himself knows that it is an unattainable future. Even describing the film at a Q&A as a fable, something that would never happen, instead being something to be imagined. At the end of a recent masterclass, Schrader stated:

“I used to be an artist who never wanted to leave this world without saying fuck you, and now I’m an artist who never wants to leave this world without saying I love you”

It is a quote that sums up the tonal shift from his previous two films, which relished in total anguish against the failures of institutional systems. Many of the thematic elements present here have been explored by Schrader many times before, but this film is distinctly less bitter and combative than pervious works. On the surface Master Gardener almost feels more hopeful, but it also feels as if Schrader himself understands the fallacy at the heart of the film.

Master Gardener is out nationwide on May 26th.