Things That Hang From Trees
D: Ido Mizrahy; with Deborah Kara Unger, Daniel von Bargen, Cooper Musgrove, Ray McKinnon, Peter Gerety, Laila Robins
Trash, mostly, is what hangs from the enormous Live Oak that sits outside Miss Millie’s diner in St. Augustine, Fla., circa 1969. That tree also serves as the staging crowd for some of the more dramatic moments in this atmospheric, sometimes listless film from director Mizrahy and screenwriter Aaron Louis Tordini (who also wrote the source novella). Saucer-eyed Musgrove plays Tommy Wheeler, a shy, seemingly dim little boy who skirts about town bumping into local folks (there’s no other word for “colorful” types like these), including amiable town drunk and the Jesus-freak barber who likes to shake his fist at the lingerie shop owned by Tommy’s comely mother, Connie Mae (Unger), then use that fist to other means in the comfort of his bathroom. The causality here is somewhat thin – any time one story really gets cooking, we’re jettisoned to another – but the ensemble cast does good work, and the location becomes a character unto itself.
11am, Dobie
This article appears in March 17 • 2006.
