TIME OUT OF MIND (2014) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Oren Moverman
Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone,
Kyra Sedgwick, Steve Buscemi, Jeremy Strong
There's not much of a story here. It's just a few days in the life of a homeless old man scuffling around the city, trying to find a warm place to sleep at night and pawning his coat for a six-pack of beer. Richard Gere plays the guy, and it's some of the best acting he's ever done. He doesn't disappear completely - he's still Richard Gere - but when you see him panhandling out on a crowded sidewalk, a watch cap pulled down over his eyes and an indifferent world scurrying by all around him, darned if he doesn't look like the real thing. More often, he's photographed at a distance, through windows and doorways. Sometimes you barely see him. Sometimes he's not in the frame at all. He's invisible, and that's the point. He's got alcohol issues and mental health issues, not severe enough to keep him from scraping by on the street, but debilitating enough to prevent him from getting any real help. In one of the film's most frustrating scenes, he goes to a social-service agency where he's told that to qualify for assistance, he'll need to furnish a picture ID. He hasn't got one. He's asked for his social security number. He can't remember it. He's told that to get a new social security card he'll need a copy of his birth certificate. And at that point he gives up. It's more than he can process or handle. So he's back on the street, another shabby old man trying to score some beer money and hoping that when he shows up at the shelter he'll still have a bed for the night. Ignored. Forgotten. Invisible.
Merry Christmas
