ONE (Shooting Gallery) Starring: Kane Picoy, Jason Cairns, Autumn Macintosh, Paul Herman, Ed Lynch, Gabriell Ruvolo. Screenplay: Tony Barbieri and Jason Cairns. Producer: Wendy Cary. Director: Tony Barbieri. MPAA Rating: Not rated (could be R for profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 86 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I can't imagine a thoughtful movie lover watching ONE without realizing that director Tony Barbieri -- a first-time filmmaker -- is in complete command of visual storytelling. He does things veteran directors by the score would shun out of simple fear, though they are likely the best choices for the moment. He embraces a distinctive rhythm, and lets his camera say things his characters can't say. This is neither a flash-for-flash's-sake technical show-off, nor a man content to point his lens at people while they exchange glib dialogue. ONE is a coming-out party for a director to watch.
I'd love to report that Barbieri's eye and his narrative restraint make ONE a must-see film, but it's possible to take narrative restraint to an extreme. Barbieri also co-wrote the story of two childhood friends facing turning points in their lives. Charlie O'Connell (Jason Cairns, Barbieri's co-scripter) has just been paroled from a sentence for assisting in his grandfather's suicide; Nick Razca (Kane Picoy), a one-time sure-thing baseball prospect, is living with his parents and working as a garbage collector. Charlie comes to stay with Nick while he looks for a job, but the two friends seem to have different plans for their lives. While Charlie returns to school and begins a relationship with a woman named Sara (Autumn Macintosh), Nick deals with his own feelings about his failed baseball career and the feelings of his father (Paul Herman) on the same subject.
The first thing anyone is likely to notice about ONE is that it doesn't look or move like a typical film. Barbieri tells the story of these lingering characters in lingering takes, with performances pitched at a level of quiet resignation. His preferred composition places his camera outside a doorway, with only one of the two characters involved in the scene visible at any time. It's a device he uses perhaps to excess, but he captures effectively the tension between people occupying the same room while living in different worlds. Barbieri even makes the subtly audacious choice in one scene to slowly blur the characters in a scene, pulling the focus to an object in the foreground so gradually you may just think your eyes are playing tricks on you. At virtually every moment, I was fascinated by the prospect of what Barbieri might do next.
The narrative itself, unfortunately, is not nearly so fascinating. It's not that the characters are not compelling; Barbieri and Cairns have crafted a pair of enigmatic, lived-in roles in Charlie and Nick. ONE simply suffers from a near-crippling case of "the muteds." Virtually every emotion and every confrontation isn't just writ small, it's writ to the point that you need a microscope to see it. Barbieri may have been aiming for a style that feels real, but he seems scared to death of anything that could be perceived as an emotional high point. He observes and observes and observes -- skillfully, to be sure, but from such a distance that the characters threaten to disappear at any moment. In his zeal to make ONE feel real, Barbieri doesn't allow it to feel at all.
Even with such a mega-subdued story, ONE is still strangely watchable. The naturalistic performances are good; the arc of the two main characters consistently interesting. But it's really about Barbieri's knack for using his camera to create a mood. There are many skills that make up a great director: facility with actors, pacing, and yes, setting up the right shot for the right moment. In ONE, Barbieri makes it clear that he needs little help with the latter. I can't wait for the film he makes when he masters the other two.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 quiet ones: 6.
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