Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Plot synopsis:
Ruth Guthrie is walking across a field and is followed by Bob Muldoon, who tries to dissuade Ruth from leaving him to return to her mother's. Ruth is adamant and reveals that she is angry at Bob because he supposedly told Freddy that he was going to 'strike out on his own'. Bob reassures her that this isn't the case, that he meant the both of them. They reconcile and Ruth reveals she is pregnant.
Later that night Bob and Freddy commit a crime while Ruth waits in the getaway car. The police, including Patrick Wheeler, goes in pursuit of the culprits and a gunfight ensues, leaving their accomplice Freddy fatally shot and Ruth shooting Patrick. Bob concocts a plan to take the fall for shooting Patrick and the crime committed earlier so that Ruth can raise their child in freedom. Bob and Ruth surrender their weapons. They are apprehended and Bob jailed. Ruth tells Skerrit, Freddy's father, that she is going to wait for Bob. Bob writes several letters to Ruth while he is in jail, promising to be back with her and their child soon, and admonishes her to write to him. Their letters are always read by officials before they are passed on to either Ruth or Bob. Meanwhile, Ruth gives birth to their daughter, Sylvie.
Years pass as Ruth and Sylvie live a normal life in the small town of Meridian, Texas. Patrick, who does not know it was Ruth that actually shot him, notices Ruth and Sylvie around town, but Ruth avoids any contact with him. One day, Patrick makes a visit to Ruth's residence and tells her that Bob has escaped from prison. The local detective questions Ruth as to Bob's whereabouts, and Ruth tells him that Bob has not come to visit her and that he will not come back for her and their daughter. Meanwhile, Bob is traversing the state of Missouri in order to escape the authorities. He coerces a woman to drive him to a location and then gets a train back to Texas. In Texas he procures the help of his friend Sweetie. When Sweetie asks Bob how he got out, and Bob tells Sweetie that he walked out and purports to have a higher calling to life and prison is not a part of that calling. Meanwhile, three bounty hunters, led by an individual called Bear visit Skerrit's hardware store and make general inquiries about the town.
Patrick visits Ruth to return her letters. He tells her that she should move to a safer place until the situation passes, which Ruth takes to mean as until Bob is caught. Bob visits Skerrit at his hardware store. Skerritt informs Bob that there are many people who want him dead and that Bob needs to stay away from Ruth and Sylvie. Patrick visits Sweetie's establishment, asking if he has seen Bob. As they go upstairs, Sweetie tries to warn Bob of the approaching policeman by talking loudly and making a show of trying to open the door to the room Bob is staying in. Bob escapes but leaves behind a photo of Ruth and Sylvie. Sweetie accounts for it by saying it was something Ruth had sent him to pass on to Bob.
On the day of Sylvie's birthday party, Patrick gives Sylvie a guitar. While talking with Sylvie at the party, Patrick learns that Ruth has been planning a trip with Sylvie. Bob arrives at the house but notices Patrick and subsequently leaves. Bob returns to the original shootout location and encounters the bounty hunters. They immediately fire their weapons at him and he manages to kill one of them during a struggle. He shoots another when he attempts to drive away, but he is also seriously wounded. He does get away but is chased by the third. Bob coerces a driver, Will to drive him back to Ruth's house. Will tries to tell Bob that he should be taken to a hospital but Bob refuses, insisting to be taken to Ruth's house.
Sylvie wakes up to find her mother sleeping on the sofa in the arms of Patrick. Patrick smiles at her and she smiles back. They are startled by gunshots outside. Patrick runs out to investigate and finds the third bounty hunter, engaged in a shootout with Skerrit. Patrick shoots the bounty hunter dead and goes to see if Skerrit is okay. He finds that Skerrit is fatally wounded. Ruth and Sylvie are taken to the police station for questioning and safekeeping. When Patrick returns them to their home, they find the front door open and Patrick goes in to investigate, finding a grievously wounded Bob. Ruth follows Patrick into the house and stops Patrick from approaching Bob. Ruth tends to Bob, and Sylvie enters to see her father dying in the arms of her mother. Patrick takes Sylvie back outside and comforts her, while her parents exchange a few last words.

Tags: murder, storytelling, flashback

Review:
David Lowery's cool sophomore feature, "Ain't Them Bodies Saints," resurrects the bad old days of outlaw love that has been portrayed in such seminal cinematic classics like Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" and, most notably, Terrence Malick's "Badlands." Unlike those films, though, Lowery concerns himself less with the crimes that his Romeo and Juliet commit, instead focusing on the fallout.On a summer evening in the 1970s, lovers Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (the porcelain-dainty Rooney Mara) find their Midwestern crime spree has ended with them holed up in a farmhouse, as armed deputies gather outside.
The two are led away from the scene in cuffs, with Bob taking the full weight of their crimes and being sent to prison.Four years later, Ruth has given birth to a daughter and tries to live a normal, peaceful life.
Despite being a very simple story, it has a larger, more timeless feel, aided by the perpetual magic-hour vistas and the ponderings of the main characters (Mara and Affleck's dreamy voiceovers lovingly add to the poignancy Lowery's film already presents in spades).While Bradford Young's elegant cinematography is certainly one of Saints's most striking attributes (he did win an award for it at Sundance earlier this year), the performances are what truly enthrall.
And Ben Foster, whose chief stock in trade is unbridled intensity, plays it broodingly low-key, in a welcome performance reminiscent of Sam Shepard's subdued, tender work in another Malick joint, "Days of Heaven."Unlike its predecessors, the romance in Lowery's film doesn't die in a hail of lead or from execution in the electric chair.
The directing however is great, it is perhaps what really saves this movie, the slow placed, silent sequenced, coupled with fantastic shots of the rural Texas countryside add structure and really pull you into the story, something that the script sadly does not.
Writer/director David Lowery has gathered a superb cast of actor to explore a rather simple story, a cinematic folksong in the western sense (the film is set in the 1970s but could easily be timeless so far reaching are the themes): quite simply it is the tale of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas hills to reunite with his wife and the daughter he has never met.Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and his wife/girlfriend Ruthie Guthrie (Rooney Mara) and their kin Freddy (Kentucker Audley) have been 'raised' by a man named Skerritt (Keith Carradine) and are bank robbers.
In their latest attempt Freddy is killed and Ruthie shoots at and wounds Sheriff Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), but to protect his pregnant wife Bob takes the blame and is sent to prison for four years.
It's already a crime thriller without any thrills.David Lowery is, like way too many other film festival award-winning filmmakers, greatly inspired by Terrence Malick.
But when it's overly obvious the director is trying to be like Malick, it becomes a bad thing.Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a film filled with beautiful images and music but it's story is unsuccessful in getting us to care about any of it's characters or any particular out-come of events.
When Ruth (Rooney Mara) shoots policeman Patrick (Ben Foster), her lover Bob (Casey Affleck) takes the blame and goes to jail.
As Bob closes in on Ruth, the cops and the gangsters close in on Bob.There are times during Ain't Them Bodies Saints when writer-director David Lowery's style and technique comes across as mimicry, of Malick and also of Jeff Nichols, as well as countless American movies from the 1970s.
At times the film flows like a visual poem, with Bradford Young's evocative cinematography melding perfectly with Daniel Hart's stirring music.
Mara is sentimentalised as the angelic mother, but Lowery is wise enough to suggest that this comely vulnerability is an act also - a sophisticated defence against hard men secretly seeking softness.Perhaps the film veers too closely at times toward stylish vagueness and too far from the broken heart of the story.
It appears ham fisted when the director is obviously choosing his shots carefully, but when he lets intuition guide him he manages to capture some great moments on film.Like one scene where Rooney Mara's character leaves church, and the local sheriff gives her a tip of a hat outside in a short tracking shot to the tune of a quirky soundtrack - it's simple and effective.
This dreary movie has some good things going for it on paper, but they're all wasted on a lugubrious directing style that recreates the feeling of dozing on a hot summer day, not because you're tired but because it's too hot to do anything else.Casey Affleck is a young man who goes to jail for armed robbery.
Meanwhile, she's flirting with the cop who she shot (Ben Foster), though he doesn't know that she's the one who wounded him.The plot summary makes this film sound like it would be full of dramatic tension but it's not.
And then done his own thing.Ain't Them Bodies Saints follows the relationship of Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and his partner Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara).
Several years later, he affects an escape from the prison in which he is held and makes his way back to his home town in rural Texas.There is very little back-story or explanation of events in this atmospheric film.
Hopefully this role will prove a springboard for Affleck and give him some momentum – he has good screen presence.There was also a strong performance from Rooney Mara and support from Ben Foster and Keith Carradine.The cinematography was, on the whole, superb.
And in those years it was just enough time for co-star Rooney Mara to go from unknown, to starlet, to having a quaint and brilliant year with Side Effects, Saints and hopefully, Her. In a romance story that will draw strong comparisons to Terrence Malick's Badlands, the pair's successfully delivers a bond that's strong enough to keep the ashes burning despite spending most of their screen time apart.When I heard of Ain't Them Bodies Saints, I expected something brutal and bleak, but instead, it's one of the most tender films I've seen in a long time and has a love story I really rooted for.
Couple this with some excellent and emotive acting from the three main characters (especially a surprise from Rooney Mara, Casey was amazing as usual) and this movie really pulls on your heart strings as well as being a feast for your eyes.
If it is indeed true that Lowery used Malik as a touchstone as to what he was aiming for its commendable at just how close he came and if he never gave a second thought to Malik's artistry it is equally as impressive, as Ain't Them Bodies Saints is one of the year's most original and strangely poignant tales.Lowery's story of young lovers Bob and Ruth (played by both equally impressive on form actors in the increasingly assured Mara and the ever reliable Affleck) is more concerned with using imagery and musical cues to set the tone and tell the story instead of a script full of wordy set pieces, so it's to the movies credit that is captures such stark beauty on camera thanks to DOP Bradford Young and features one of this year's best soundtracks complied by Daniel Hart.Some criticism has been passed onto Bodies in concerns to Lowery concentrating to much on the images and construction of the film and not on the script, but critics in this respect are missing out on being caught up in what has been beautifully presented on screen, and while I concur that there is perhaps a certain coldness felt towards characters when there was room for the audience to really understand and feel a warmth towards them Bodies still invests in character growth and by the movies finale it would be hard not to feel some form of emotion.Bodies is a movie that will disappear quickly from many people's memories or to watch list's which is quite the shame considering the love which has gone into it from all involved.
to David Lowery, Dallas writer/director; Bradford Young, Cinematographer; Daniel Hart, music; Mara Rooney, Casey Affleck, Keith Carradine hold scenes from the bedroom to banks to car chases.
'AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara star in this romantic crime drama about young lovers who are also outlaws, in Texas, that's crime spree comes to an end when one of them is sent to prison.
It's a routine story but it's beautifully shot and the acting is all more than decent.Affleck plays Bob Muldoon and Mara plays Ruth Guthrie, they're outlaws in Texas who run into trouble on their latest heist and Guthrie shoots and wounds a police officer named Patrick Wheeler (Foster).
As he returns he finds the police waiting for him and Wheeler is now romantically interested in his wife.The movie seems inspired by classic 'young love and crime' films like 'BADLANDS' and even 'BONNIE AND CLYDE' but it isn't nearly as memorable as the movies it's trying to emulate.
Casey Affleck is Bob Muldoon, the man who takes the heat for a botched job so his pregnant wife (Rooney Mara) can be free to raise their future child.
The movie is a take on Bonnie and Clyde style LOVE story of a couple Bob (Casey Affleck) and his pregnant partner Ruth (Rooney Mara) who gets involved in crime activities and are caught by police, with Bob taking the blame of shooting a cop Patrick (Ben Foster) and goes to prison and daily writes a LOVE-letter to Ruth asking her to wait for him.
Director David Lowery has his distinct style with slow pace, beautiful shots, blended background score and music, on the edge characters that leave something mysterious for audiences to dwell deep into their psyche.
It is a classic LOVE story of a out-law couple presented in an unusual new way by David Lowery's surreal sensibilities (obviously feels like under the influence of Terrence Mallick - of Days of Heaven fame)
It's a small story about love and life with big, mythic feelings.It isn't an abstract art-house film: there is a plot there, but it's quite insubstantial: almost like it's not fully realized just as Bob's fantasies about his notoriety and future are just this: myths.
This creates the sense that all of these beings are close to the film's title somehow and adds to the mythic, fairytale nature of the world we are in.The biggest strengths of the film, for me are the acting, the cinematography, the poetry (in language, music and visually) and the way the film gets inside you so you feel as the characters feel.Taking these one at a time: The actors do an amazing job: all in subtle ways.
For me, Casey Affleck is the heart of the film and it is Bob's love, yearning and steadfast belief in an impossible future that drove my feelings and was the basis for the most heartbreaking elements of Ain't Them Bodies Saints.
Everyone else plays their roles excellently but I doubt I would have felt much from the film overall without the emotion brought from Bob. Worth noting too is that Affleck and Mara have a great chemistry in the few scenes they have together so that in these fleeting moments, you really buy their love for each other.
Nonetheless the acting is superb from Casy Affleck (Bob), Rooney Mara (Ruth) and Ben Foster (Patrick).
Everything is constantly very dark and moody and slow, you have got to like that sort of style, otherwise many will get bored by it, hence the reason whhy there are so many low rated other reviews on Imdb written by people who were expecting something completely different.It is a bleak, yet very delicate and touching story about 2 lovers who are torn apart after the husband (Casey Affleck) gets imprisoned.
After a fast-paced first half, the film slows down signficantly as Bob Muldoon (Affleck) tries to make his way back home, but it nevertheless remains interesting.
In "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", Young worked with promising writer-director David Lowery and great actors such as Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster.
This is one of those westerns nobody has ever seen, and it is our jobs to make sure that this great movie is seen.David Lowery's film is about a Texas outlaw couple in the 1970's.
Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) and Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) are a couple caught in a shootout with law enforcement.
The film is visually stunning and that is what elevates it from other similar films.The film takes place in the Texas Hill Country during the 70's where we are introduced to a young couple, Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara), who are deeply in love.
The supporting turn from Ben Foster and Keith Carradine also adds more depth to the film because they all want the best for Ruth and her daughter.
The second feature from director David Lowery, the film takes the best components from Terrence Malick's peak years and steadily heightens into something painstakingly rousing.Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) and Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) are young, in love, and making a living as small-time crooks in a rustic Southern town.
Four years later, he escapes from prison, hoping to renew his life once again; but when he comes home, he finds that Ruth has moved on and is now beginning a romance with the man she shot all those years ago.Before the early bulleted encounter that changes the course of Ain't Them Bodies Saints, there is an impression that we are about to witness a Badlands 2.0 of sorts, a deep-dish of romanticized crime and doomed love.
It was obvious that David Lowery's "Ain't them Bodies Saints" (where did they get that title) would be compared to such films as "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven".
We are sure as hell in Malick country and in a good way too, as young outlaw Casey Affleck breaks out of jail and heads for home to be reunited with his girl Rooney Mara and the young daughter he has never seen.
Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Ben Foster and Keith Carradine are a pleasure to watch ...
"I promise I'll come back and get you." Bob Muldoon (Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Mara) are young and in love.
Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a noir western about a couple who pull a heist that ends with a shootout and Bob (Casey Affleck) taking the blame for shooting a lawman (Ben Foster),whom Ruth (Rooney Mara) had wounded.
For sure, Malick never had this much action.The mood of inevitability that hangs over the film is effective as the director crosscuts between Bob in prison and Ruth and their child carving out a life in the same small town as in the crime.
When I went to see "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" (R, 1:36) it didn't.Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara star as Bob and Ruth, a pair of star-crossed lovers who get into a shoot-out with police in rural 1970s Texas.
Monotone is the best word I have to describe the acting, especially from Casey Affleck, who played a similar character (and slightly better) in 2007's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", but is much more entertaining playing quirky characters as he did in the "Ocean's" films.The most interesting thing about "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is the movie's title – even though it doesn't ever mean anything in the story.
While Ben Foster work overtime to track mud all over their characters, Mara and Affleck don't do much better than the film itself at bringing viewers inside their lives.
I watched this film because of Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara.
David Lowery has made an impressive first feature film with "Ain't Them Bodies Saints".
The cinematography is excellent at the hands of Bradford Young; long, beautiful shots give the movie a sense of longing and hope.Bob (Casey Affleck) and Ruth (Rooney Mara), along with Freddy, have been brought up by Skerritt (Keith Carridine).
AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS (2013) ** Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Keith Carradine, Kennadie and Jacklynn Smith, Nate Parker.
This was written and directed by David Lowery, to whom I give bonus points for originality.A young man, Casey Affleck, accepts blame for wounding a police officer in some tiny retro town in Missouri, although it was his lover, Mara Rooney, who did the shooting.
On top of being a love- letter to one of finest ever decades for cinema, it manages to tell a compelling, if often isolating, little story in its own right.Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) are two reckless young lovers.
So most of the movie is the hunt for him, and their attempts to escape to a place far away with the suitcase of money to start a new life.The characters are played well by Rooney Mara as Ruth Guthrie and Ben's younger brother, Casey Affleck as Bob Muldoon.
This hackneyed story of a troubled love affair gone bad is fairly predictable, but the superb acting by Affleck, Rooney Mara ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), and Ben Foster, together with the "show, don't tell" screenplay by writer/director David Lowery, set it apart from lesser versions.Probably best known for his villainous role in "3:10 to Yuma," Foster does a great job with his role as a forgiving police officer, shot by the wife of character Bob Muldoon (Affleck), during a siege following a robbery.
Muldoon takes the rap for his wife, and goes to prison, only to escape four years later, in an attempt be reunited with his wife, Ruth, and the couple's four-year-old daughter, born while he was "inside."A compelling, hypnotic musical score by Daniel Hart, dark, moody cinematography by Bradford Young, and a strong-but-understated performance by veteran actor Keith Carradine (why doesn't he get more work?) and you almost have a perfect movie - almost.