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As I sat watching All the Real Girls and Gerry one Sunday afternoon, I was struck by the desire to watch two other movies. Not that either of the films I was watching was bad. In fact, both were entertaining and thought-provoking in places. But each one reminded me of something better, and the comparisons cast an unflattering light.

Gerry, the new movie from Gus Van Sant, stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two young men named Gerry. They head out in a car one day into the desert. They're out for a hike, heading towards some destination they call "the thing." But the thing turns out to be farther than they expected, so they give up and turn around. But on their way back, they get lost.

At first, it's not a big deal. Gerry and Gerry wander around the desert as the sun goes down, talking about Wheel of Fortune and some game involving Greek mythology. The next morning, they search for their car or at least the highway. But Gerry's earlier prophecy that "everything's going to lead to the same place" turns out to be wrong. Their expedition leads them through some of the most beautiful desert landscapes you'll ever see, but no sign of a car, highway, or any human civilization. So they walk and walk and walk some more. They have no idea of where they're going--even a simple idea like walking in one direction eludes them--but they're confident that mere walking will get them somewhere. We in the audience aren't so sure.

If this sounds like some Beckett play, you're not far off. The sense of existential dread is only heightened by the lack of conversation (I'm not sure the two characters have more than 60 lines of dialogue between them) and the repetition of walking, mountains, and scrub brush. In many ways, Gerry is almost a landscape film, with beautiful time-lapse footage of rolling clouds gathering over the hills and 360-degree pans of the stunning
American southwest.

The movie that Gerry reminded me of, however, has nothing to do with the desert. Rather, it's Bela Tarr's masterpiece Werckmeister Harmonies, which takes place in a Hungarian village. But Gerry, which is openly
indebted to Tarr, has a similar rhythm--a slowness that requires tremendous patience of its audience--and a desire to plum the meaning of life. There's even a scene--a tight close-up of two men as they walk quickly, their feet creating an urgent rhythm--that's straight out of Werckmeister. And the soundtrack in Gerry, based on the music of Arvo Part, is wonderfully reminiscent of Mihaly Vig's score in Werckmeister.

Unfortunately thought not unexpectedly, Gerry can't hold a candle to Bela Tarr's brilliant work. Part of the problem is that Gus Van Sant doesn't have anything to say; he's content merely to let his attractively scruffy
stars and beautifully scruffy landscape carry the day. Werckmeister might be slow, but it's bursting with ideas and astounding moments. Gerry just features some strangely funny scenes and a denouement that comes out of nowhere. After a while, even the time-lapse photography looks mundane. Yes yes, the ephemeral clouds set against the timeless mountains. I get it. It's pretty, as is the gorgeous opening sequence shot from a car, but it doesn't add up to much.

I unfortunately feel the same way about All the Pretty Girls. It's the sophomore film by David Gordon Green, who directed the fantastic George Washington a few years back. He's returned with another tale of
lower-class life in North Carolina. This time it's young adults instead of kids, but the idea of trying to find your place in the world is still the same.

Girls stars Paul Schneider as Paul. We're told early on that Paul is a ladies man, though there's little evidence of it. He's fallen in love with his best friend's younger sister. Her name is Noel, and she's played by the wonderful Zooey Deschanel. She's just 18, and she's returned to this small town where she's taken a liking to Paul. Paul's nervous, though, since he knows he can't treat her as badly as he has his other girlfriends. He's
anxious to change, but he's not sure what being a responsible guy feels like.

Surrounding this budding young couple is a menagerie of interesting secondary characters. Paul's mom (the fantastic Patricia Clarkson) works as a clown in a local children's hospital; his uncle Leland (Benjamin Mouton) has an expressively sad face and is raising a young Asian girl by himself; and Tip (Shea Wingham), Noel's brother, drinks too much and is deeply uncomfortable with Paul's relationship, but he's got girl issues of his own. We also meet Bust-Ass, who's desperate to hook up with any woman, including Noel. One of the strengths of All the Pretty Girls is how carefully realized this world is. Though none of the secondary characters gets much screen time, they're all fully-rounded people with stories that prick our interest and make us want to know more.

That unfortunately is not true of Paul, and yet he dominates the narrative. Part of the problem is that Schneider just isn't as strong an actor as his cohorts, but the bigger concern is that his character isn't as believable or interesting. Supposedly, Paul has slept with 26 different women and left all of them broken hearted. Yet, his sensitive-guy portrayal is completely at odds with that apparent fact. I didn't believe he had broken up with any girl much less 26. And when his relationship with Noel hits a rough patch, the banality of his predicament is topped only by his reaction.

All of this is especially disappointing because All the Pretty Girls is reminiscent in many ways of George Washington. Cinematographer Tim Orr has returned to offer his exquisite magic-hour lighting, and the music is beautifully eerie. The racial dynamic of George Washington, which was so interesting, isn't on display, but the attention to the small-town setting is. And there are certain moments in Girls--particularly a dance sequence in a bowling alley--that capture the delightful charm of Green's debut. But the transcendence of that first feature and the gripping humanism has been left behind. Instead, we have a boy-finds-girl, boy-loses-girl,
boy-doesn't-know-what-to-do story, and that's only a shadow of what George Washington accomplished.   

J. Robert Parks 3/8/2003