The Big Bend
As their daughters Olive and Fiona (the filmmaker’s daughters Zoe and Delilah Wagner) sleep in the back seat, New Yorkers Cory (Jason Butler Harner, TV's 'Ozark') and Melanie Price (Virginia Kull) pull over in Marfa, Texas, to witness its famous ghost lights. Melanie is anxious about telling the old college friends they are going to visit, Mac (David Sullivan, "Primer") and Georgia Talbott (Erica Ash, "Scary Movie V"), about ‘their situation,’ in what will turn out to be a tumultuous vacation just outside “The Big Bend.”
Laura's Review: B+
Inspired by the parenting nightmare of a friend's daughter briefly being lost in Big Bend national park, writer/director Brett Wagner compels with a film that is part marital relationship drama and part thriller which always keeps its next move out of sight around that bend. Considering that many of its themes are quite serious, Wagner also throws in some laugh-out-loud moments while cinematographer Paul Atkins ("Voyage of Time") evokes mysterious implications from the astounding natural landscape.
In the desert town of Terlingua, Mac convinces Georgia, ready to retire, to stay up to greet their friends. The Price clan arrives shortly after 11 p.m., Conner Talbott (Grae Carter Mathews) inviting one of their girls to check out a video game as his young brother Maverick (Gavin Mathews) sleeps on a couch and Melanie wanders about admiring how they renovated the remote home, its only apparent issue a misbehaving water heater. She also asks if there is a gun in the house, a practical parenting concern Georgia quickly agrees is valid while assuring that the one Mac keeps for ‘wildcats and weirdos’ is out of reach, its ammunition locked up.
As the next couple of days unfold, we will witness tension in one marriage, tenderness in the other, female bonding with weed in the hot tub, and two dads messing up a hiking trip in which Conner gets stuck at an awkward height while Fiona wanders off altogether. And if that mention of a gun and desert dangers didn’t signal it, Wagner cuts to a long-haired looking wild man, who we will learn is escaped convict Karl (Nick Masciangelo, "The Wind & the Reckoning"), making his way across the landscape. And while Karl’s presence may have been foreshadowed, Wagner continually upends expectations.
The ensemble has been beautifully cast, Harner and Kull hinting at big secrets in a united front while Sullivan and Ash’s problems bubble to the surface separately. The kids are all completely natural, young Delilah Wagner’s determination to resuscitate a ‘dead’ toad enchanting. Nick Masciangelo is a complete wild card amidst the proceedings in the best way possible. Wagner may play a little fast and loose with a major climactic development he keeps off screen, but with “The Big Bend,” he illustrates how the surprises, both good and bad, life often throws at us can have the most unexpected results. This is an independent gem.
Robin's Review: B
The Talbotts and the Prices, old friends, have a reunion at the former’s remote desert home at the edge of a national park. The hope is for everybody to take a respite from their woes, but things do not work out quite that way at “The Big Bend.”
I had mixed feelings as I watched “The Big Bend.” I think that is due to the multiple directions the story, by writer-director Brett Wagner, aspired to go. Ostensibly, the families are getting together to chill out and have a nice visit. Things start to get out of whack when one of the Price’s kids, little Fiona (Delilah Wagner), says “There’s something wrong with my daddy.” The story is slow to explain what exactly is wrong.
Meanwhile, the Talbotts are having their own crisis, facing money problems and bad investments. But, they put that all behind when the dads take the kids on a day trip in the wilderness and the mom’s give themselves a spa day – of sorts. But wait, there is more.
There is a stranger hiding out in the desert and little Fiona wanders away from her dad, triggering a frantic search. This is the point where you are led to think that the strange man, named Karl, is going to be a great danger – but I never thought so. What transpires goes in an unexpected direction with Fiona and Karl and, I think, it took what was a story trying to find its direction and grounded it in an unexpected way. The change of focus to Fiona and Karl actually made for a better and more satisfying tale.
One of the stars of “The Big Bend” is the national park itself. The foreboding images of the desert ramp things up for dad, Cory (Jason Butler Harner), when he loses track of Fiona and is frantic to find her as night falls. The moms are ignorant of the crisis and party it up.
My apprehensions, initially, dissipated as little Fiona, lost and alone finds safety in the most unexpected place. This part of the story pushed aside the multiple story lines and examples of very bad parenting (which seems to be a thing in family-themed movies of late, at least to me
Eammon Films released “The Big Bend” in NY on 4/26/24. It opens in L.A. on 5/17 and Austin, TX on 5/31 with a rollout continuing in June.
