Reseñas de la crítica

Attuned to the subtle, tacit demonstrations of discomfort between the two men, Old Joy is one of the best films ever made about the natural dissolution of a friendship. If the city grinds with noise, the forest where the two men camp is deafening in its near-silence.

Even though Mark and Kurt bear no resemblance to the soothsayer or the savant, together they arguably present a more interesting quest simply because they do not have any answers. They are more perplexed than prophetic about how to reconnect to their friendship and to themselves, and Old Joy looks directly at the uncomfortable moments of introspection, the clichés of soul-searching, and the real question of whether or not the project of personal transformation is worth it.

The men build a campfire, drink beer, shoot at cans with pellet guns in an all too conscious effort to avoid discussing the tribulations of their past, engendering a palpable tension that increases as they completely undress to bathe in the hot springs. The climax, however, turns out to be nothing more than a simple but haunting goodbye; Marks returns home to his pregnant wife, but Kurt, it is revealed, has nowhere to go.

Much of the loveliness of Reichardt's film has to do with the reflective and fitting quiet it fosters in its contemplation of two longtime friends as they find their way to some hot springs over the course of a weekend. In this portrait of people formerly close who've grown apart—an experience with which many of us are familiar yet seldom a subject studied onscreen--what remains unsaid is often as important as the little dialogue that is...

Reichardt also happens to be a natural, cinematic filmmaker of a classic minimalist vintage. Her appreciation for both the discreet passage of time and silences, uncomfortable and understandable alike, feels unique in a cultural climate of over stimulation and noise.

American movies don't come much smaller, subtler, or swoonier with tactile experience than Kelly Reichardt's film, where a rare commitment to heartfelt naturalism keeps the proceedings free of bull and cool-indie toxins... Old Joy might be the only film ever made about that universal moment when the bonds of youth begin to rust and become irrelevant beneath the pressures of age and responsibility.

If our society is in decline-and-fall mode, as Ms. Reichardt seems to suggest, are middle-aged hippies likelier to be happy than their conventional middle-class former friends, now saddled with family responsibilities? For that matter, how can one measure degrees of joy, old or new? Mark is simply too undefined a character even to begin answering that question. Let us say simply that Ms. Reichardt's brand of minimalism leaves me truly joyless.

If you must have plot, motive and payoff, Kelly Reichardt's exquisite new film about an ambiguous reunion between two old friends may not be up your alley. See it anyway: It contains the whole world. Even at 76 blithely uncommercial minutes, Old Joy, which is based on a short story by Reichardt's co-writer Jonathan Raymond, takes its sweet time. The movie's scale is minuscule, but the physical and emotional landscapes it travels are as broad, deep and mysterious as the human psyche itself.

For a few lyrical stretches in Kelly Reichardt's beautiful Old Joy, there's a sound you rarely hear in American movies—silence, or at least the gentle assertions of nature when people aren't yapping over it. And for Reichardt, the space between conversations speaks loud enough, whether the silence signifies an awkward divide that two uncertain friends can no longer fill, or merely an idyllic break from the clamor of everyday life.

A triumph of modesty and of seriousness that also happens to be one of the finest American films of the year... What the director does have in great supply are beauty and feeling, which is why this trip isn't the bummer it might seem. Ms. Reichardt answers the deep current of sorrow that runs through the film and the lingering sense of regret that hangs over the men with one pristinely framed image after another.

It attests to a new strain in Amerindie production—literate but not literary, crafted without ostentation, rooted in a specific place and devoted to small sensations. If Old Joy is more laid-back and contemplative than Mutual Appreciation, it's because the characters are more weathered. Open-ended as it may appear, it has a crushing finality. For all the wool-gathering and guitar-noodling, this road movie is at least as tender as it is ironic.

Objects and gestures come loaded with significance, but meaning seems to spring from within, rather than being artfully imposed from without. The characters are ostensibly types--the earnest sell-out and the wizened hippie--but the finely modulated performances by the principals (and even by Lucy, Mark's ever-energetic dog) avert cliche.