Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2010 > March > 13 > Entry
A taste of ‘Leaves of Grass’
I was a little skeptical when I read the “Leaves of Grass” synopsis and learned that Edward Norton was not only going to be playing opposite himself as twin brothers in writer-director Tim Blake Nelson’s film, but that he would be doing so in a marijuana comedy. My fears were alleviated Friday night, however, when I quickly realized that “Leaves” was not a typical stoner flick and even more quickly remembered how enjoyable it is to watch Norton on film.
With a baby on the way and the responsibilities and dangers of being a big-time weed grower and distributor weighing on him, Brady Kincaid (Norton) lures his Ivy League professor brother, Bill (Norton), back home to Oklahoma to play unwitting accomplice in his half-baked attempt to redirect the course of his life.
As Bill gets reluctantly charmed by his brother, he comes to question his long-held resentments and judgment of the life he left behind and realizes that the boundaries and truths which he found in the study of philosophy were no more valid than the life led by his uneducated brother.
Nelson has penned a thoughtful and at times touching study on what it means to lead an authentic life and how one’s search for happiness can take on many forms. The weightiness of the message, which seems to represent a personal and meaningful struggle for the filmmaker, and the plot digressions slow the pace of the film, at times, and the whip-neck changes are cause for as much confusion as entertainment, but the performances by Norton, who obviously embraced the challenges offered by the roles, make for a lively parable - part Coen brothers, part Tarantino.
It’s hard to think of a better place than Austin for the movie to make its U.S. premiere. That was thinking of writer-director Tim Blake Norton, who told me Saturday that he made sure the film’s release was pushed to the first week of April to accommodate screening first at SXSW.
While it is easy to say that marriage makes sense due to the proliferation of marijuana in the movie, an herb not too difficult to sniff out in Austin, the real reason for the effective paring rests in the dichotomy shared by the film and the city: intellectualism balanced by sensualism. Nelson, Norton and I discussed that aspect of the film, along with fear, the business of making movies, mystic Cowboys and more in an interview that will appear on Friday, April 2, when the film is released here in Austin.
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