Charlie Countryman | Review

Country Bumpkin: Bond’s Debut a Grating Escapade of Disingenuous Cliché

Swedish born Fredrik Bond, who’d made a notable name for himself as a successful director of commercials, makes his feature film debut with Charlie Countryman, unfortunately a clipped version of its initial moniker, originally titled the The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman upon its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. This indeed is a misfortune, because Bond’s catchy title was the only original aspect about the film, now with as denuded a calling card as its content is absent anything of consequence. Inane, banal, and thoroughly unrealistic, the film plays like the interrupted fantasy of some melancholic teenager who falls asleep listening to ultra-hip tracks on his iPod.

We meet Charlie (Shia LaBeouf) in a hospital, dazed as he waits with his father (Vincent D’Onofrio) to say goodbye to their wife and mother (Melissa Leo) as she’s about to be taken off life support. She visits him in spirit before taking off to wherever, instructing Charlie to visit Bucharest, for no other reason than it’s someplace specific and he needs to get his life on track. So, off to Romania he flies, befriending the man sitting next to him, who dies in his sleep. The man’s spirit asks that Charlie deliver his funny hat to his daughter. After a snafu with the hat, Charlie meets said daughter Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood) at the airport, and he’s instantly smitten. A series of coincidences places him in her daily activities, and we learn she is a cellist that plays in the Bucharest Opera House. But, ah, the fair maiden has an ill-tempered gangster ex-husband (Mads Mikkelsen), and a situation at a strip club with one of Charlie’s hostel mates (Rupert Grint), soon finds him facing the wrath of the seedy Romanian underworld.

Falling in love is a tricky act to pull off in film, and it generally requires charismatic characters in believable scenarios, which Charlie Countryman has neither of. From its opening moments (D’Onofrio in one minor snatch of dialogue), the film’s humor falls mercilessly flat, working us over with such gems as having the dead Romanian insist he deliver a comforting message to Gabi, which ends up translating to “She has feet of a childish dog woman.” Then there’s the problem of Ms. Evan Rachel Wood’s distracting accent (see John Travolta’s go at a Serbian lilt in Killing Season for a similar affect), every uttered word like a joke without a punch line. Surely, there are many Romanian actresses that speak English that could have easily invigorated the role of Gabi with aplomb? LaBeouf, on the other hand, is stuck in maelstrom of mopiness that doesn’t seem to include adhering to basic hygiene.

Bond and screenwriter Matt Drake convey love as an aggravating and insipid puppy love, the characters here a defamation to its very notion. And then there’s the groan worthy plotting, involving, of all things, a Viagra besotted and perilously sallow Rupert Grint, to get the dramatic conflict going. Despite having some catchy tunes on its soundtrack, most of which feel poorly chosen since the scenes they’re presented with are void of gravitas or feeling, one gets the sense that we’re supposed to be wowed at Roman Vasyanov’s hyperkinetic cinematography, which has snatches of interesting edits from Hughes Winborne, like the brow of Evan Rachel Wood on a yellow skyline, but these are so fleeting and rare that it feels more like a student film directed by someone with a predilection for uppers and distrust of sleep. In short, Charlie Countryman (looks like original narration by John Hurt was not included in the theatrical cut), is another example, of which there are a countless multitude, of how style cannot compensate for a lack of substance.

.5/5 stars