Count Toni Collette among the many great, middle-aged actresses who are struggling to find quality roles in American film. In response to the dearth of big-screen opportunities, she – like Laura Dern, Laura Linney, Viola Davis and countless others – made a trip through television some years ago, via United States of Tara, where she arguably found her most worthy role to date. As pop culture journalists will relentlessly attest, she went where the good roles for women exist right now. But with the show ended and a less-wonderful TV project also behind her (RIP, Hostages), she's now back in the movie market, shooting blockbusters and weepies and, in the case of Glassland, intense Irish addiction dramas.
Collette is that rare actress who can operate as a compelling lead, a sturdy supporting player and a scene-stealing highlight in a three-film stretch. It’s that last muscle that she hadn’t flexed in a while – Little Miss Sunshine gave way to a string of grounded maternal characters, while Tara and indies like Lucky Them and Miss You Already have kept her intermittently front-and-center – until Glassland, which recharges her wild side in thrilling fashion. This is the kind of role she once excelled in – see the range from Velvet Goldmine to About a Boy to The Hours – and that likely convinced Steven Spielberg that she was the right person to take on the multiple personalities of Tara a decade ago.
For Glassland, however, her presence is both a blessing and a curse. As Jean, the disheveled alcoholic mother of a working class cab driver, Collette goes big and bold as the movies haven’t let her for some time. She chews up the scenery with a dizzying volatility, crafting a performance that’s demonstrative of both her considerable ability and her cutting intelligence. Yet it’s that very command of the screen that weighs Glassland down. Fundamentally, this is the story of Jean’s son, John (Jack Reynor), coming to terms with his caretaking nature – with how he enables Jean in his quest for her love, and how he crosses ethical lines in pursuit of harmony – and ultimately, it’s a story far less worthy than the one Collette hints at in her limited time on-screen. It pales in comparison.
Director Gerard Barrett is a gifted filmmaker, to be sure. Glassland is elegantly wrought and viscerally grim, at times a searing morality play that positions affection against responsibility. But it seems unaware, perhaps uninterested, in its strengths and weaknesses. In the handful of scenes in which she appears – half implosively silent, half explosively talkative – Collette matches Reynor for an exceptional two-hander, theming a parent-child relationship reversed by habit. Their work together reaches greatness, with Barrett proving his talent for extracting strong acting within tight parameters. Yet scene-by-scene, the film slides further away from its emotional center, relying on an exceedingly ambiguous and underdeveloped plot involving the trafficking of young women. It’s not bad, exactly, but it is downright frustrating when the potential for richer storytelling is left offscreen, and untapped.
This isn’t to say that Glassland should be something it’s not. Rather, it’s indicative of clumsy filmmaking – a botched tempo and uneven emotional template that prevents serious investment in the broader story at play. The up-and-coming Reynor is very good here, but he’s often situated in scenes that telegraph ideas rather than breathe life – his hangouts with friend Shane (Will Poulter) merely juxtapose family lives that are functional and dysfunctional; his illegal work climaxes with a melodramatic meditation on his role as a caretaker. The lack of clarity in the proceedings doesn’t help, either. Barrett seems keen on establishing an immersive experience, in which plot points are inferred rather than described. But his script is jumbled, leading to an unpleasant clash of form and content that leaves you scratching your head.
The scenes featuring John and Jean eschew these limitations. One closely depicts an evening between the two, which begins with John nervously coming home, not knowing what to expect, and evolves into a tender, if troubling, night of drinking and dancing. Before Barrett turns the lights out, he hands Collette a monster of a monologue, in which Jean essentially provides her life story to John – a rare moment of exposition in a film otherwise bereft of background information. Collette just nails it, maintaining a tragically inebriated detachment as she conveys a simple apology through excessive explanation. Reynor’s at his best as he quietly listens to her sincere rambling, and later, Collette breaks your heart along similar lines as Jean absorbs her son’s desperate plea for her getting well.
Barrett manages powerful stuff between the two actors, but that too contributes to the movie's scattered impact. His vision here is appropriately dreary, hushed and deliberate and saturated with deep greens. Yet while languidly paced, ideologically the film feels rushed and incomplete. Its collection of great moments fails to cohere, or resonate beyond their initial punch. Once Jean is checked into a facility, and John is left to pay back the debt he owes and sit through the uncomfortable peace of living alone, Glassland all but admits its identity crisis. What is the movie’s heart, if not Jean and John? And when does it hit you hardest, if not in the moments between the broken mother and her “good boy” of a son? Collette does some remarkable work in Glassland. But she looms largest when the movie tries to get on by without her.
Grade: C+