Stillwater

Directed by Tom McCarthy, Stillwater follows Matt Damon’s Bill, a no-nonsense oil-rig roughneck, as he arrives in Paris to help his estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin’s Allison) prove that she didn’t commit the crime for which she’s been convicted. Filmmaker McCarthy, working from a script written with Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, and Noé Debré, delivers an erratic yet mostly rewarding drama that benefits substantially from Damon’s mesmerizing efforts as the taciturn central character, as the actor’s immersive performance anchors the proceedings from start to finish and ensures, generally speaking, that the periodic bumps in the narrative are relatively easy to overlook – although, by that same token, it remains clear that Stillwater, saddled with a 140 minute running time, contains more lulls than one might’ve liked. There’s little doubt, as well, that the progressively absorbing bent of the picture’s storyline proves instrumental in cementing its success, as McCarthy does a superb job of developing the protagonist’s relationships with certain periphery figures and, as well, his ongoing investigation into his daughter’s supposed crime – which ultimately goes a long way towards compensating for the sporadic emphasis on conventional, predictable plot developments. By the time the satisfying, less-than-sunny climactic stretch rolls around, Stillwater has confirmed its place as an engaging piece of work that boasts one of Damon’s very best performances.

*** out of ****