Ed Solomon wrote the scripts for MEN IN BLACK and BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. He’s not the guy from whom you’d expect a serious, thoughtful, even intriguing script that wrestles with the theological and philosophical questions of redemption. And yet, with LEVITY, his directorial debut, that’s just what he’s done.
The protagonist is Manual, with an “a”. This is a man beyond repentance and beyond the hope of forgiveness. The crime was murder, though one committed in the heat of the moment, not premeditated. He welcomes prison, where he’s spent almost as the outward manifestation of his own imprisoning guilt, though prison is ultimately a non-issue, so deeply entrenched is he in his own personal emotional limbo. When forced into parole, he wanders like a ghost, in the world but certainly not of it, constitutionally unable to rejoin society at large. Billy Bob Thornton, with a mane of disordered hair and hooded, haunted eyes, plays Manual with a disturbing stillness that he carries with him along with the picture of the angel-faced boy that he murdered. It is as though any emotion is too volatile to be allowed to surface. What is remarkable about this performance is that there is a frightening depth to the stillness, the pain beneath is so profound that it informs even the way Manual sits in a chair, stands silently alone and apart, watching the world at large.
Solomon has filled his story with references that are biblical in the Old Testament self. As Manual (Emmanuel?) returns to the scene of his crime, the phone rings and he answers the call. It leads him to a job with a preacher (Morgan Freeman), who uses profane idiom to preach sacred text. Manual’s job is to watch cars parked outside a rave club, whose interior, full of smoky air and writhing bodies, has a decidedly hellish aspect. Even the season, a barren and harsh winter, is rife with symbolism, bespeaking Manual’s condition, frozen forever in that moment when he took a life. Solomon also makes wonderful plays on the title. Manual, weighed down by his guilt. Those around him making jokes to him and at his expense in an attempt to lighten him up. And one visual moment of transcendent beauty that verbal description would sully.
Yet the framework, no matter who well thought out, would not alone a good film make. Soloman has crafted characters of depth and contradiction whose struggles great and small are depicted with an exquisitely raw truthfulness. They are also a study in contrast and unexpected convergences brought to life by a talented ensemble cast that delivers without flash, but rather with perfectly calibrated performances. Thornton’s brooding hopelessness is a foil to Freeman’s kinetic evangelism. Kirsten Dunst, as the rave queen from the suburbs, has the brittle fragility of a little girl lost playing at courage, a quality that is echoed in Holly Hunter’s single mother, the object of Manual’s fascination, whose son is one wrong move from becoming or committing a drive-by shooting.
The only flaw in LEVITY is Solomon making the kids that Freeman’s mission is trying to help go from sullen to sunshine just a little too quickly. It’s a nagging annoyance that is neatly absorbed by the film’s overall excellence. LEVITY provides real substance without a holier-than-thou or, heavens forfend, a smarter-than-thou attitude. Solomon loves these characters and respects his audience. And when he’s done telling his story, he’s left that audience feeling a little more enlightened than before.
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