Old Joy

If there was ever a movie custom designed for the loyal readership of a rock periodical, Old Joy is it. Kelly Reichardt’s reflective and deceptively minor film charts two people growing apart against the lyrical backdrop of an Oregon rainforest. Married with a baby on the way and in dire need of head space, Daniel London joins old friend Will Oldham on a camping trip up in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. London is apprehensive about his new responsibilities while Oldham has none at all. Disappearing into a haze of dope smoke at any given opportunity, Oldham is a man without a plan going nowhere very slowly. Sadly, the two friends have outgrown one another, a small tragedy made apparent by tiny details in Ms Reichardt’s near haiku like script. One of them seems to reach a new maturity up the mountain, the other does not, a transformation that’s communicated in equally economical terms. A potent, affecting film found in teeny little drplets, you’d say Old Joy was like a homeopathic remedy if such elixirs weren’t just a load of baloney.