The Go-Getter: The Pennypacker Perspective

So all biases for She & Him aside, The Go-Getter is not just a decent Indie film that avoids the pitfalls of pretension, it is actually a near-perfect picture. The screenplay of this compelling road trip dramedy is essentially poetry and it is delivered with stirring warmth and sincereity from the entire company, notably the surprising lead Lou Taylor Pucci. Rather than be a overgrown pretty boy, Pucci is an authentic, lovable portrayal of a good kid who does one stupid thing. Considering the series of events that follow his one stupid thing, he handles it all with a mix of bewilderment and existential acceptance. Zooey gives her strongest performance yet in a role that she absolutely excels in (the ultimate good girl), and if it wasn't June, she could have (and should have) some Oscar buzz. Bill Duke shows up for a monologue that is the highlight of the picture (along with the small ode to the French New Wave), Judy Greer makes a cameo doing her best Judy Greer-ish performance, and Maura Tierney makes you remember why she was a discovery on Newsradio before she was stranded on E.R. for so many years. Jena Malone is maybe the one hiccup in the affair but not so much for her performance as for the brazen and bold way she sheds her childhood acting past for the role of the sexpot. It is too-far-off-the-scale from her past work. But she does pull it off, as disturbing as it is.

The soundtrack is, as was to be expected, exceptionally good. Besides being the birthplace of She & Him, it is a repository of prime M. Ward material, most notably "To Go Home" and "Sweethearts on Parade". The Black Keys also show up a couple times, including with their career best "10 A.M. Automatic".

This film is writer-director Martin Hynes' debut. This has to be one of the most impressive debuts of the decade. What could have so easily been a ham-handed waste of talent in a muck of pretentious drivel is instead a meditation on not just the classic road story, but on the fundemental concepts of family, friends, and relationships. There have been few if any pictures that have done so much about the complicated process of being distant siblings by doing so little. A very simple, sparse story about two brothers is made complex and whole by a wedge of assorted characters who run the spectrum of good to bad to good again and it is all set against a loving backdrop of the North American west, from Eugene to south of the border. Comparisons to road trip films and novels of the past are inevitable, but The Go-Getter makes a very strong stab at carving out a niche all its own.

In New York, the film is playing at the Quad Cinema on E 13th St between 5th and 6th but you only have a couple more days to see it. Its run ends Thursday night.