Natural Selection | Blu-ray Review

Natural Selection, Robbie Pickering’s raw exploration of bible belt secrecy, proves to be an impressive debut for the Texas born director. Taking home a quartet of awards from SXSW last year, the film finds Rachael Harris behind a pair of wide wire-rimmed spectacles playing Linda, a deeply repressed woman of astute faith who’s husband has been keeping deep, dark secrets. Harris has long been hopping from one small screen appearance to the next, but here, paired with Matt O’ Leary’s trailer trash Raymond, she gives an astoundingly open hearted performance that affirms her silver screen worth. The two comprise a classic road movie odd couple, but Pickering’s script mostly avoids the tired tropes of being highway bound, and though darkly comic along the way, the tale is quite the heart breaker in (drab) disguise.

Linda is both culturally and sexually subdued. Since a teenage disaster that left her infertile, she and her husband Abe (John Diehl) have never been intimate on the grounds of religious belief that sex may only take place with the intention of conception. Soon after Abe is found on the edge of death at his usual secret hangout – the local sperm bank – Linda discovers that Abe has a 23-year-old son named Raymond living in Tampa, and against pastoral advise, she takes off in search for him with the intention of bringing him back to his father before he passes. What she finds is, to her, the equivalent of the Antichrist. Raymond, a foul-mouthed junkie with a bad habit of breaking the law, is from the film’s opening frames obviously not the kind of guy you want to get mixed up with, but Linda’s naive and trusting heart is strangely freed by their head-butting interaction.

In classic fashion, the straight-laced Linda learns to live a little while the wild man-child concedes to the help he desperately needs, but Pickering doesn’t seem interested in wrapping up all the loose ends for the sake of family ideals. Unveiling their closeted skeletons simultaneously, Linda and Raymond find they are not only face value polar opposites, but core arch nemeses who’s acquaintance bears explosive repercussions that extend beyond themselves. Beneath the grotesque humor of stunted experience and redneck pride lies the meaty theme of having to deal with one’s decisions in life, either by outrunning them like Raymond, suppressing them like Abe or confronting them as Linda does, and it is her barren struggle to do so that makes the feature so compelling.

The Disc:

Cinema Guild has been digging deep this past year, releasing quality films with stunning presentations matched by plentiful extra features. While Natural Selection is another worthy film they can proudly list among their catalog, the disc is not as boisterous as others. While the desaturated, worn look of the film is presented with fine detail, and the DTS-HD 5.1 audio track is well rounded and warm, there is surprisingly thin extras lining the disc, which comes packaged in a standard Blu-ray case.

Interviews
In a very brief series of interviews Rachael Harris, Matt O’ Leary, Robbie Pickering, and the producers speak on their experiences with each other and why they like the film. Pretty flimsy in comparison to the Guild’s past material.

Theatrical Trailer
Pushing the comedic elements of the film, and layering the screen with lavish press quotes, the trailer is misleading promotion, but you can feel the underlying tension that pervades the film regardless.

Final Thoughts:

As a film that also obviously discounts religion, it does so passively through appearances and tonality. While circling the sacrament of marriage and continuously making references of faith or the lack there of, it never directly broaches the subject. Instead, Natural Selection is incisive in its dissection of bible belt quandary by offering up an emotionally supreme performance through Harris that leans on the comedy of southern archetypes. With impact that feels all too personal, the film is a visually bland, yet emotionally rich debut. For Pickering’s sake, let’s hope he hasn’t purged all the demons on the first go around.