Product Details

• Actors: Daniel London, Will Oldham, Tanya Smith, Robin Rosenberg, Keri Moran
• Directors: Kelly Reichardt
• Writers: Kelly Reichardt, Jonathan Raymond
• Producers: Anish Savjani, Jay Van Hoy, Joshua Blum, Julie Fischer, Lars Knudsen
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Kino International
• DVD Release Date: May 1, 2007
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000N2HDG4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,164 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Old Joy" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Based on a 50-page script by Jon Raymond, and shot in ten days, Old Joy has a quiet energy that propels it further in its simplicity than many big budget movies. Director Kelly Reichardt, a former assistant on early Todd Haynes films, has enlisted Haynes as an executive producer and Yo La Tengo for soundtrack, lending Old Joy a hipness that it exploits to reveal the relationship between the two main characters. Mark (Daniel London) leaves his pregnant wife, Tanya, at home for an excursion into the woods with his hippified buddy, Kurt (Will Oldham). Leaving Portland in Mark's Volvo, with dog in tow, Kurt smoke bowls while Mark navigates into the Cascades backcountry, where the two get temporarily lost then camp until morning, for a hike to paradisiacal Bagby Hot Springs. Slight tension arises out of their divergent lifestyles. Mark's a liberal yuppie, while Kurt's easy drifting underpins his idealism. In key scenes, Kurt verbalizes his fears that the two old friends are losing intimacy. But Kurt's sweetness, for example when he asks, "Is it cool if I sleep in the tent with you?" or massages Mark's shoulders, overrides any real conflict. Cuts to birds chirping, slugs crawling, and campfires raging also relax the viewer as illustrations of the forest's healing power. More a meditation than a packed adventure film, some may find Old Joy slow and meandering, while others will enjoy this pace as precisely the film's point. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

A true American independent film (Boston Globe), Kelly Reichardt's achingly exquisite Old Joy has been hailed at film festivals worldwide for its unparalleled beauty, profound insight into the human condition and transcendent, meditative narrative, creating "a shared adult experience of lost possibilities and present realities" (Entertainment Weekly). Based on Jonathan Raymond's short story and featuring a soundtrack from Yo La Tengo, Reichardt's second feature chronicles a short camping trip by two old friends to a quasi-mystical oasis, the Bagby Hot Springs, in Oregon's lush Cascade Mountains. The actors in this Cain-Abel story are Kurt (cult musician Will Oldham), a post-hippie with never-present promise; and Mark (Daniel London), the father-to-be, intent on putting the Kurt part of his life behind him, but also silently nostalgic for a more carefree, radical past. Far more than a lo-fi indie riff on Brokeback Mountain, the intricately layered Old Joy is in part an elegy for the '70s American cinematic revolution -- with shades of Easy Rider and the Oregon-shot Five Easy Pieces -- but also fits square into the minimalism of present-day art house cinema. A gorgeous nature film, Old Joy is sensatory and full of room for interpretation. Reichardt considers what it means to be free in Bush's America, throws two kinds of individual freedom together, watches the muted sparks fly and hopes for common ground, creating "one of the finest American films of the year" (New York Times).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Superfluous Men" July 8, 2007

By Stanley H. Nemeth

Format:DVD

The political dimension of this unusual film hasn't, I think, been sufficiently emphasized. Both of the central figures, Kurt and Mark, are marginal men, recognizable leftover types from the past century, neither of whom has any citizen's presence much less clout in current America. Kurt holds on to a stale, hip sort of behavior which actually long antedates his own generation's, while Mark, his friend from several years back, is a former hipster, now turned yuppie, a fan of "Air America," married, in possession of a house and with a kid on the way. Mark is converting himself into a work-a-daddy, but he has intimations that something's missing in this recently chosen sort of life. At heart, he, like Kurt, is revealed as still just a boy-man. Accordingly, he jumps at the chance to escape from his house and pregnant wife to try to recapture past youthful good times with Kurt through a road trip to Bagby Hot Springs in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Mere location, as we'll see though, doesn't make much difference when it comes to fostering true human intimacy. One can be as alienated or happy in the beautiful countryside as in the industrial city. To emphasize this, the camera shows us exquisite birds on tree branches in the city and leftover garbage at an otherwise naturally beautiful country campsite.

What these two guys discover on their trip is "the people gap," the awareness that there may be no greater strangers than old friends who've been apart for several years. Intellectually and emotionally, Kurt and Mark have nothing in common any longer; the theme of the film, accordingly, is that of the sadness of time, change, and inevitable loss. The photography, beautiful in its fleeting images of scenery, itself richly underscores this theme.

On the road, the former friends pretty quickly see they actually have little to say to one another. Therefore, Kurt mostly fills time smoking pot, while Mark talks too frequently on his cellphone. Although both men sense the gap between them, the less direct Mark reveals this awareness only through occasional facial expressions. The more honest Kurt gives voice to it. Finally, he senses that physical contact may be the only way to reestablish a link to Mark. This culminates in a hot tub scene of unasked for massage. Mark at first is taken aback by this regression to adolescent playing around, but when Kurt tells him to "settle in," he does, becoming so astonishingly submissive he lets his defending hand sporting his wedding ring sink passively into the tub's water. Exactly what finally transpires here is left unclear, but what is not unclear is that nothing durable beyond the moment has taken place, that no bond of any sort has been reestablished between these guys. Their goodbyes are accordingly pretty emotion free and seem to come not a moment too soon. As a chronicle of time, change and loss, the film is undeniably affecting.

If it has a flaw, I'd say it's a certain monotony arising from the focus on only two characters in an extremely closed situation. Given this narrowness, the film more resembles a lyric poem read aloud than a dramatic action, and, despite the beautiful photography, this makes for a very long 76 minutes indeed.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Old Joy July 23, 2007

By John Farr

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Mapping the psychic places where old friendships go to die, Reichardt's two-man (and one dog) road picture subverts the buddy drama with its slow, somber rhythm and air of unspoken longing. Kurt, a flaky, pot-smoking New Age type ably played by real-life musician Oldham, desperately wants communion with his more grounded friend Mark, who denies that anything is wrong, though his face and body language tell a different story. Reichardt's poetic evocation of their bucolic surroundings--birds, trees, woodlands--add to the tinge of unsettling melancholy. "Old Joy" might feel slow and plotless to some, but patient viewers will be rewarded by this film's subtle, near-wordless study of amicable alienation. It has the tang of truth.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Walk in the Woods February 7, 2007

By Chris Roberts

Format:DVD

As kids we all have friends that as adults we no longer have anything in common with other than the past. And we have also all tried to bridge that gap between the then and the now, usually by reminiscing about shared alcoholic beverages, shared girlfriends, and shared memories. This melancholy film directed by Kelly Reichardt explores those feelings of lost friendship and the unrelenting nature of passing time. The simple tale involves two old friends, now on much different life paths, who decide to spend a weekend together in the woods. Reichardt directs "Old Joy" with a slow hand that has no interest in posing for you or winning over your approval. She also has no ace up her sleeve even though I, raised on "Brokeback Mountain" and "Twentynine Palms," was fully expecting something extraordinary out of this little trip of theirs. Rather the joy comes from the small things, as in life, such as Kurt (Will Oldham) musing about his overly adventurous trip to buy a notebook and the beautiful nature photography that will make you wonder if we weren't intended to live closer to nature.

As their time together progresses the differences between them become all too apparent. Mark (Daniel London) has gone domestic on Kurt, and that is just the way it is. Of course he has been well paid for his belief in the system, his car is nicer, he actually has a cell phone, and his wife back home is carrying his child. But, as is always the case, he is tied to these properties that force him to lead a lifestyle that is not at all free. The wife doesn't want him to leave, the cell phone keeps ringing, and he gets very uncomfortable when Kurt starts smoking in his car. Based on his choice for driving entertainment (Air America) we are meant to believe that he is at least a self-proclaimed liberal, but standing next to Kurt he looks downright conservative. While he listens to the weighty matters of the day, such as the energy crisis, Kurt is out on the street giving his last dollar to a homeless man. Kurt's world is so small that he doesn't need to know about the energy crisis or Bush's double speak. He just needs to make it from day to day, and without all the modern trappings he is free to do that however he so chooses.

Considering Reichardt's somewhat famous transient lifestyle it is easy to guess whose side she is on. That is not to say that Kurt is given an angelic portrait. His ramblings are long and straddle the fence between incoherent and BS, and he is stuck trying to pull off the look where he has more hair on his face than he does on his head. But despite his disappointment in Mark's decision to go domestic he never criticizes; he inquires and makes snarky comments to the waitress, but is always supportive of what he does with his life. I can't recommend this film however, because it just cuts a little too close to the banality of real life. Why not just go out into the woods and listen to your real friends babble nonsense after one too many beers? My childhood friends became Republicans, businessmen, and weirdoes, and those are just the ones I kept in touch with. What "Old Joy" does succeed at is reminding us that it is far too easy to become engulfed in the here and now, and that a little trip out of your comfort zone every now and then would probably do you a world of good. **3/4