Edward Norton assumes the roles of identical twins Bill and Brady Kincaid in this darkly comic tale of contrast and balance. Bill is an Ivy League classics professor who prides himself on having shed both his southern accent and his southern working-class family. An inspiration to his students, he espouses vital philosophical thought while constructing a deliberate life of self-control. Over a thousand miles away, the equally brilliant and amiable Brady has chosen a life of impetuousness and unpredictability – a life teetering on the brink of danger and crime.
When Bill is forced home to Oklahoma to attend the ostensibly dead Brady's funeral, the result is nothing short of vaudevillian. At every turn, Bill tries to resist the wildly successful (and surprisingly sophisticated) marijuana-growing business schemes on which his brother and his pregnant sister-in-law thrive. And when confronted with his bitter relationship with his eccentric mother, Daisy (Susan Sarandon), all Bill can do is wish for a speedy return northeast to his tenure negotiations. Only the free spirited, poetic local Janet (Keri Russell) seems to make any sense against the backdrop of greasy-spoon truck-stop pummellings. But when Brady implicates Bill in a doomed plot involving the menacing drug-lord Pug Rothbaum (Richard Dreyfuss), Bill's life completely unravels, making him realize no rational philosophy can protect him from life's twists and dangers.
Writer and director Tim Blake Nelson himself hails from Oklahoma and studied classics, and plays Bill's unwaveringly loyal best friend Bolger in the film. From the film's opening in a sheltered university lecture hall through to its shocking climax, he elicits performances from his actors that are remarkable in their breadth and subtlety. Scenes can swing from laugh-out-loud funny to quiet and revelatory over the course of a single joint. In the face of country-style drugs and violence, Norton's brothers turn both to the women in their lives and to each other, demonstrating that fraternity and vulnerability can sometimes go hand in hand.
Jane Schoettle
Tim Blake Nelson was born in Tulsa and studied classics at Brown University. In addition to acting in over thirty-five feature films, he has directed the features
Eye of God (97),
O (01) and
The Grey Zone, which screened in the Festival's Contemporary World Cinema programme in 2001.
Leaves of Grass (09) is his most recent film.