Review by Crites | Synapse Films | Buy from Amazon.com
After some eerie foreshadowing we find that a young man, Andrew Morrison (Andrew Hulse), has just discovered a cache of mementos at his parents’ house leading him to believe that he may be adopted. Instead of confronting his folks Andrew hires a local private investigation service, Finders of the Lost, as well playing detective himself; in the box of jewelry and military insignia he’s found there is a wristwatch engraved “Roxy Gaines,” and Andrew sets off to find her and ask her some personal questions.
All Andrew manages to locate however is Roxy’s hostile ex-husband, who tells him that Roxy’s been missing for twenty-five years. Finders of the Lost however does come up with the name and address of Andrew’s birth mother, Julia Holt, now living in Atlanta. Andrew writes to her looking for a connection, and when Julia reads his letter she shoots herself.
Driving out to his mother’s home Andrew meets Susan Becker, the social worker assigned to her; evidently Ms. Holt needed quite a bit of supervision. Susan gives Andrew a key to his mother’s place, and rooting around through some of her junk he finds a bible in which is tucked a photograph alongside a number and a name: Christer James. Andrew sets out looking for Christer, but only finds his landlord. Landlord says Christer skipped out owing two months rent some time ago, but that there was a “crazy bitch” he used to spend a lot of time with. Landlord also mentions that Christer played piano at the Triangle Blues Bar…
Andrew visits the bar and finds Christer James there, but the old black bluesman doesn’t have much to add except for the fact that he thought Julia had a storage space rented somewhere nearby. And that Andrew obviously wasn’t his kid, so he could go ahead and lay off with all the questions.
Back at his foster parents’ place, where he lives in a garage bedroom, Andrew is visited by a Detective Lofton. It seems that along with Christer Ms. Holt was involved with a man named Noah Whitman, currently wanted for questioning in the recent murder of a young girl and a suspect in a rash of similar slayings back in the Seventies. Lofton is interested in anything unusual Andrew might turn up at his mother’s home, and he tells Andrew to keep in touch.
Inspired by Lofton’s probing Andrew returns to his mother’s place and finds an old clipping about the fifth in a series of missing girls – this one named Roxy Gaines. Visiting Susan again Andrew learns that his mother was a schizophrenic, and as his behavior becomes more eccentric and the flashbacks of a doomed relationship with a girl named Andi become more and more frequent, Andrew may be more than a little unhinged himself.
Right after another visit from the increasingly insistent Lofton Andrew receives a call from a nearby storage facility; they’d recently received a letter from Julia informing them that Andrew would be taking over the rental payments. The lock on the old storage shed just happens to fit the key Andrew found earlier in his dead mother’s clarinet case, and opening up the unit Andrew finds a number of items considerably more disturbing than the curios he’s turned up so far.
Using some of these things as clues Andrew uses a bit of deduction, footwork and luck to find a particular spot in the forest where he finds a weathered human skull. Having shadowed Christer previously in an attempt to learn more about his history, Andrew now visits the man at home determined to confront him; Christer is more than ready to oblige, meeting Andrew with a pistol and a very serious story.
When Christer has finished saying his piece, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that Andrew isn’t to come around again, Andrew leaves to explore the diminishing options in his increasingly darkened world.
There are certain elements to STILLWATER that make it something of a genre of its own, a modern gothic detective story holding closets full of skeletons and yielding uncomfortable revelations around every bend. Yet in the end it fails to take that final step necessary to bring it all together with an ending that conveys any sense of shock or awe. Or even resolution; the film’s title and the repeated visits to the water-filled quarry do take on additional relevance as the story progresses, but there’s still that profound lack of definitive denouement to be reckoned with. That’s very likely a deliberate move on the part of the filmmakers, and serves to make STILLWATER a more realistic and understated film, but it still betrays the feeling growing throughout the picture that it is building towards a horrific finale. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether Andrew’s fate is a satisfying one; this viewer was hoping for something with slightly more impact.
Still, throughout its length STILLWATER capably weaves between harsh realism and grim fantasy; Andrew’s essence of being one of the Lost himself is shown not only through his inability to culminate the potential love connection with Susan and his marginal jobs as thrift store co-owner and groundskeeper for his foster parents, but also in the desperation and need evoked through memories of a girlfriend who may very well be imaginary. With a new door opened up into his past Andrew is definitely looking for something more, but it is nothing at all like he expected.
For the most part the performances are capably low-key, matched by a subtly haunting soundtrack that together help generate the feel that the film is building momentum toward a physical and emotional climax. The cinematography is beautiful in parts but overall rather plain, letting the story unfold without unnecessary camera trickery. All in all a capable and complex film, it will be interesting to see what writer/director Kays comes up with next.
Special features to this unrated DVD include audio commentary, director bio, trailer and photo gallery.
