The Quarry

Today's lesson, boys and girls, is always keep your eyes ahead when you're driving. That way you don't see anything untoward on the side of the road. When you see untoward things on the side of the road you tend to stop. When you stop and get out bad things might happen to you and ruin your day. So look ahead and mind your own business. It's just common sense.

David Martin (Shea Whigham) rolls into town. He's tired, his hand is bleeding and he's lost. A young boy asks who he is and he says he's the new town preacher. He's pointed towards the church and the place where he'll be living. His new hostess Celia (Catalina Sandino Moreno), trapped in town by circumstance, warns him not to leave his belongings in the truck but he's too tired to do anything about them and lo and behold all his earthly possessions are taken. He reports the crime to the local cop Moore (Michael Shannon) who's investigation gets very murky very fast.

I liked this. It's a slowburn (it's pace will be far too slow for some) look at systemic racism, the burden of guilt and the all encompassing need for redemption that comes with it. It's dusty west Texas setting gives it a nice western vibe and a stark atmosphere bigger productions could only reach for. It has a timeless feel, a few glimpses of phones aside, it could be set anytime in the last 100 years. David could have been played by Robert Ryan, Moore by Lee Van Cleef and Celia by Katy Jurado and you'd have the same movie. We're in a place where time has stood still, policed by a racist cop, fueled by religion and where anyone with brown skin is a scapegoat. Despite the feel it's not hard to see the setting as a dig at modern day America, it isn't exactly subtle.

And at the same time it is. It tells a story that gets under your skin in an un-flashy and patient fashion, doesn't linger on violent acts, doesn't spoon feed us the plot, backs out of bedrooms when it's time to give the inhabitants privacy. There's little backstory and it's left to us to watch the story unfold and the shades of grey multiply. Even though we know David is dodgy he treats his flock with decency, far more than they've experienced before. Illegal immigrants in a Texas town know they've a hard life ahead of them and the little respect they receive goes a long way. They get no such respect from Moore, a hypocrite who'll let an innocent Mexican man take a beating while sleeping with a Mexican woman.  Shannon's made a good career out of menace and here he does it again. There's something genuinely unnerving about that glare of his. It's why Celia lets him into her bed. It's not exactly coercion but it's not far off it either. Moreno's Celia is the human face of the immigrant experience, trapped, used, tired and sick of it. Her turn here reminds us of why she was an Academy award nominee in the recent past.

Whigham as David has a harder job.  It's nice to see a journeyman actor like him play a leading role for once. His David is a withering husk of a man when the film starts and dries up even more before our eyes as guilt eats him up and Whigham does a fine job portraying a lost soul torn between self preservation and redemption. It's morally murky. Is his new position enough to absolve him of a past he wants to forget? The film sits on the fence just long enough for us to start wondering before eventually taking a side that leads to a low key but satisfying ending. While taking the time to remind us that whatever happens, in America the minorities always lose. Always.

The Quarry is available to stream online now.