Tetro (2009)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Vincent Gallo, Maribel Verdú, Rodrigo de la Serna, Érica Rivas, Silvia Pérez, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Carmen Maura, Sofia Gala. [R]

Young Ehrenreich goes to Buenos Aires to reunite with his long-absent older brother (Gallo)—née Angelo, but going by the moniker of “Tetro”—a once-promising but now burnt-out writer. As the brothers renew their bond and Tetro confronts buried memories and secrets from his past, the writer is recharged into trying to finish a very personal play he started many years ago. Like Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola seems renewed himself with this complex, atmospheric movie, unfolding like a dense novel, and seen more through the eyes of the younger brother as a coming of age story than from Tetro’s perspective as a self-analytical artistic odyssey of a creative-type. Ehrenreich impresses in his poised, charismatic film debut, while Gallo is lopsided tackling his multi-faceted characterization—the frustration and unease are there in spades, but less so a sense of sadness or catharsis. Bold visuals match the family strife and vivid locations, but the film’s energies are emotionally distant, and the viewer is left to observe, not experience or share, and Coppola failed to sweep me up into its increasingly melodramatic turmoil. For one, the premiere of the play didn’t feel worthy of the build-up, and for another, a late funeral scene is set up as if someone of the magnitude of Charles Foster Kane was being “honored” (or, for that matter, Vito Corleone), the perfect time and place for troubling truth to emerge, and yet… In smaller roles, Pedro Almodóvar-regular Carmen Maura makes a welcome appearance, and it’s a treat to see Klaus Maria Brandauer again (as the family’s egotistical patriarch), who has sadly all but disappeared from feature films over the last couple decades. Shot primarily in black & white, with periodic brief sojourns in color.

60/100