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Beneath the weathered baseball cap and bushy goatee, the parade of plaid shirts and the polite replies of “Yes, ma’am,” there’s a whole lot more to Bill Baker. Sure, he listens to old-school country in his pickup truck while driving between manual labor gigs and he never fails to pray before a meal, even if it’s tater tots and a cherry limeade from Sonic. It seems perfectly natural to him to keep a couple of guns in his run-down Oklahoma home, and he never misses an opportunity to watch his favorite college football team.

But there’s something simmering within this collection of red-state stereotypes, and “Stillwater” is at its best when it explores those complexities and contradictions. Beefed-up and sad-eyed, Matt Damon brings great subtlety and pathos to the role, especially when he cracks his stoic character open ever so gently and allows warmth, vulnerability, and even hope to shine through on his road to redemption. But Bill’s tale of hard-earned second chances is one of many stories director Tom McCarthy is telling in “Stillwater,” and while it’s the most compelling, it also gets swallowed up almost entirely during the film’s insane third act.

The script, which McCarthy co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain , Marcus Hinchey , and Noe Debre, loosely takes its inspiration from the case of Amanda Knox, the American college student convicted in 2007 of killing her roommate while studying abroad in Italy. Eight years later, Knox was acquitted. “Stillwater” moves the action to the French port city of Marseilles and introduces us to Bill’s daughter, Allison ( Abigail Breslin ), after she’s already served five years of a nine-year prison sentence for the murder of her lover, a young Muslim woman.

Allison insists she’s innocent; Bill resolutely believes her. And so “Stillwater” is also the story of a father and daughter trying to mend their strained relationship as he makes frequent visits to chat and do her laundry and she pretends to care as he prattles on about Oklahoma State football. (The college campus is in—that’s right—Stillwater, Bill and Allison’s hometown. But as you’ve probably guessed by now, the title refers to our hero’s demeanor, as well.) “Life is brutal,” each of them says at one point, and one of the more intriguing elements of “Stillwater” is the notion that being a screw-up is hereditary, which pushes against its feel-good, Hollywood-ending urges.

But wait, there’s more—so much more. Because the primary driving narrative here is the possibility that Allison can prove her innocence based on jailhouse hearsay about an elusive, young Arab man. Here, “Stillwater” becomes a procedural reminiscent of McCarthy’s Oscar best-picture winner “ Spotlight ,” as Bill knocks on doors and follows one lead after another, talking to people who either help him or don’t in his efforts to exonerate his only child. In this vein, it’s also about the racial tensions and socioeconomic disparities that exist in both France and the United States, and the blindly confident swagger with which some Americans carry themselves overseas—even someone like Bill who is, to borrow from the Tim McGraw song, humble and kind.

And for a big chunk of its midsection, it’s about a middle-aged man forming an unexpected friendship—and then a makeshift family—with a single mom and her little girl. Virginie (a vibrant and charismatic Camille Cottin ) and her daughter, Maya (an adorable and steely Lilou Siauvaud ), give the widowed Bill a shot at righting the wrongs of his past. Virginie and Bill initially connect when she offers to help him in his investigation by making calls, translating and generally serving as his guide through an ancient city he’s barely gotten to know. The relationship makes zero sense on paper—she’s a bohemian actress, he’s an oil-rig worker—but the small kindnesses they show each other allow them to forge a bond, and allow Bill to reveal more about himself and his tortured history, piece by piece. It sounds cheesy, but surprisingly, it works.

This is far and away the strongest section of “Stillwater,” and if the majority of this film had focused on this understated dynamic and the quiet hope of better days to come, it would have been more than satisfying. The performances here are lovely, and Damon enjoys distinctly sweet connections with both Cottin and Siauvaud. But then it takes a significant turn into darker territory toward the end, with twists predicated on major coincidences and reckless decisions. “Stillwater” also becomes a far less interesting film as it slogs through its overlong running time. While it’s fascinating to consider Bill’s self-destructive streak rearing its head once again, even after it seems he’s finally found some peace, the way it plays out is so wild and implausible, it feels like it was ripped from an entirely different movie and grafted on here. Within this eventful stretch, there’s also a suicide attempt that’s tossed in almost as a baffling afterthought, as it’s never mentioned again.

Ultimately, the cacophony of all these plot lines converging and the weight of the messaging being conveyed is almost too much to bear. Details get spelled out and characters explain their motivations when maintaining an overall air of mystery would have been far more effective. Whether or not Allison is guilty isn’t the point; enjoying a moment of stillness and solitude in the afternoon sunshine is, even if it's fleeting.

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Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Stillwater (2021)

Rated R for language.

140 minutes

Matt Damon as Bill Baker

Abigail Breslin as Allison

Camille Cottin as Virginie

Lilou Siauvaud as Maya

Deanna Dunagan as Sharon

Robert Peters as Pastor

Moussa Maaskri as Dirosa

• Tom McCarthy
• Thomas Bidegain
• Marcus Hinchey

Cinematographer

• Masanobu Takayanagi
• Tom McArdle
• Mychael Danna

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‘Stillwater’ Review: Another American Tragedy

Matt Damon plays a father determined to free his daughter from prison in the latest from Tom McCarthy, the director of “Spotlight.”

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By Manohla Dargis

A truism about American movies is that when they want to say something about the United States — something grand or profound or meaningful — they typically pull their punches. There are different reasons for this timidity, the most obvious being a fear of the audience’s tricky sensitivities. And so ostensibly political stories rarely take partisan stands, and movies like the ponderously earnest “ Stillwater ” sink under the weight of their good intentions.

The latest from the director Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”), “Stillwater” stars Matt Damon as Bill Baker. He’s a familiar narrative type with the usual late-capitalism woes, including the dead-end gigs, the family agonies, the wounded masculinity. He also has a touch of Hollywood-style exoticism: He’s from Oklahoma. A recovering addict, Bill now toggles between swinging a hammer and taking a knee for Jesus. Proud, hard, alone, with a cord of violence quaking below his impassivity, he lives in a small bleak house and lives a small bleak life. He doesn’t say much, but he’s got a real case of the white-man blues.

He also has a burden in the form of a daughter, Allison (a miscast Abigail Breslin), who’s serving time in a Marseille prison, having been convicted of savagely killing her girlfriend. The story, which McCarthy conceived of (he shares script credit with several others), takes its inspiration from that of Amanda Knox, an American studying in Italy, who was convicted of a 2007 murder, a case that became an international scandal. Knox’s conviction was later overturned and she moved back to the United States, immortalized by lurid headlines, books, documentaries and a risible 2015 potboiler with Kate Beckinsale .

Like that movie, which focuses on the sins of a vampiric, sensation-hungry media, “Stillwater” isn’t interested in the specifics of the Knox case but in its usefulness for moral instruction. Soon after it opens, and following a tour of Bill’s native habitat — with its industrial gothic backdrop and lonely junk-food dinners — he visits Allison, a trip he’s taken repeatedly. This time he stays. Allison thinks that she has a lead that will prove her innocence, which sends her father down an investigative rabbit hole and, for a time, quickens the movie’s pulse.

McCarthy isn’t an intuitive or innovative filmmaker and, like a lot of actors turned directors, he’s more adept at working with performers than telling a story visually. Shot by Masanobu Takayanagi, “Stillwater” looks and moves just fine — it’s solid, professional — and Marseille, with its sunshine and noir, pulls its atmospheric weight as Bill maps the city, trying to chase clues and villains. Also earning his pay is the underutilized French Algerian actor Moussa Maaskri, playing one of those sly, world-weary private detectives who, like the viewer, figures things out long before Bill does.

Much happens, including an abrupt, unpersuasive relationship with a French theater actress, Virginie (the electric Camille Cottin, from the Netflix show “ Call My Agent !”). The character is a fantasy, a ministering angel with a hot bod and a cute tyke (Lilou Siauvaud); among her many implausible attributes, she isn’t ticked off by Bill’s inability to speak French. But Cottin, a charismatic performer whose febrile intensity is its own gravitational force, easily keeps you engaged and curious. She gives her character juice and her scenes a palpable charge, a relief given Bill’s leaden reserve.

There’s little joy in Bill’s life; the problem is, there isn’t much personality, either. It’s clear that Damon and McCarthy have thought through this man in considered detail, from Bill’s plaid shirts to his tightly clenched walk. The character looks as if he hasn’t moved his bowels in weeks; if anything, he feels overworked, a product of too much conceptualizing and not enough feeling, identifiable humanity or sharp ideas. And because Bill doesn’t talk much, he has to emerge largely through his actions and tamped-down physicality, his lowered eyes and head partly obscured by a baseball hat that hangs over them like a visor.

It is, as show people like to say, a committed performance, but it’s also a frustratingly flat one. Less character than conceit, Bill isn’t a specific father and uneasy American abroad; he’s a symbol. McCarthy tips his hand early in the first scene in Oklahoma with the image of Bill precisely framed in the center of a window of a house he’s helping demolish. A tornado has ripped through the region, leveling everything. When Bill pauses to look around, surveying the damage, the camera takes in the weeping survivors, the rubble and ruin. It’s a good setup, brimming with potential, but as the story develops, it becomes evident this isn’t simply a disaster, natural or otherwise. It’s an omen.

Like “Nomadland” and any number of Sundance movies, “Stillwater” seizes on the classic figure of the American stoic, the rugged individualist whose self-reliance has become a trap, a dead end and — if all the narrative parts cohere — a tragedy. And like “Nomadland,” “Stillwater” tries to say something about the United States (“Ya Got Trouble,” as the Music Man sings) without turning the audience off by calling out specific names or advancing an ideological position. Times are tough, Americans are too (at least in movies). They keep quiet, soldier on, squint into the sun and the void. Bad things happen and it’s somebody’s fault, but it’s all so very vague.

Stillwater Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 2 hour 20 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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‘Stillwater’ Review: Matt Damon Gets to the Heart of How the World Sees Americans Right Now

'Spotlight' director Tom McCarthy collaborates with top French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain in this humbling Marseille-set crime drama.

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Americans are used to watching Americans save the day in movies. That’s the kind of hero Bill Baker wants to be for his daughter Allison — a young woman convicted of murdering her girlfriend while studying abroad — in “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy ’s not-at-all-conventional crime thriller “ Stillwater .” The setup will sound familiar to anyone who remembers the Amanda Knox case: Five clicks in to a nine-year sentence, Allison has always maintained her innocence. After new evidence arises, she writes a letter to her lawyer asking for help. But she’s careful not to involve her dad directly. “I cannot trust him with this. He’s not capable,” she writes.

To a particular kind of man, words like that are a direct challenge. And when that man is played by Matt Damon in sleeveless T-shirts and a bald-eagle tattoo, we expect him to save the day anyway. Maybe he does, but that’s not the reason McCarthy chose to tell this story. Originally, he just wanted to film a mystery in a Mediterranean town, deciding at some point that the French port of Marseille would do the trick. But in the time that it took to make the movie, something changed with America. Maybe you noticed. Certainly, the world did.

McCarthy tells “Stillwater” from Bill Baker’s point of view, but he invites audiences to see the character from others’ perspectives as well, to observe how this out-of-place roughneck looks to the people he meets abroad — and especially to a single mother named Virginie (“Call My Agent!” star Camille Cottin) whom the gruff widower befriends early on. Back home in Stillwater, Okla., Bill does odd jobs since losing his oil-rig gig. He wouldn’t be in Marseille if not for his daughter (Abigail Breslin). He’s not a tourist, and he’s not interested in learning the language. But he’s not the stereotypical “ugly American” either. Bill prays, he’s polite and he believes in doing the right thing. And if Allison says she’s innocent, then the right thing in this God-fearing, gun-owning guy’s eyes is to help her prove it.

Now, anyone could’ve written that movie. But McCarthy was smart: He enlisted the top screenwriter working in France today, Thomas Bidegain (“A Prophet”), and his writing partner Noé Debré to collaborate and wound up with a completely different movie. Well, maybe not completely different, but different enough to disappoint those expecting to see Matt Damon whip out a gun and kick down some doors in pursuit of justice. (Let Mark Wahlberg make that film.)

Bidegain’s signature — the thing that sets him apart from the vast majority of screenwriters — is that he doesn’t write “the scene where” a specific plot point is supposed to happen. Watching most Hollywood thrillers, that’s all you get, as if the creators bought a bunch of index cards, divided the movie into story-advancing moments (the scene where A, the scene where B) and taped them to the wall, then built the script from that. Bidegain knows we’ve all seen enough movies that such literal-mindedness gets boring, and so he and Debré come at each scene sideways: They let certain things happen off screen, focusing instead on seemingly mundane snapshots that reveal far more about character.

“Stillwater” contains a mix of both approaches — a scene where a friend of Virginie’s asks Bill whom he voted for is a prime example — and while it’s hard to say who wrote what (Marcus Hinchey, of terrific Netflix drama “Come Sunday,” is also credited), the movie’s more interesting for being less obvious. Naturally, Bill wants to clear his daughter’s name, and “Stillwater” shows him going about it. But the cultural barriers make it impossible to get far by himself — a trip to north Marseille’s notorious Kallisté neighborhood leaves him hospitalized — and so he enlists Viriginie, winning her over by being kind to her 8-year-old daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud).

Of course, Bill can’t change French law, and it’s not clear that even if he could locate the guy Allison claims was responsible — an Arab who was there in the bar that night — he’d be able to overturn her conviction. But as he and Virginie spend time together, Bill shows Maya the kind of fatherly concern he was too drunk and reckless to give Allison when she was a kid. The guilt of that irresponsibility weighs heavy on Bill, adding another dimension to Damon’s remarkable performance. There’s something caveman-like about the way the actor carries his body, in the scowl on his face and slow drawl of his Southern accent. The character has a temper problem, and from the looks of him, he could tear someone in two — although that might not be advisable in a foreign country.

After hitting a dead end in the investigation, Bill decides to stay on in Marseille. He moves in with Virginie and Maya, picking up a few words of French and playing handyman around the house. To dub this Bill’s redemption might oversimplify things, although something’s plainly changing in him. And that change is the soul of “Stillwater.” Resisting any temptation to be cute, yet bolstered by child actor Siauvaud’s immensely sympathetic presence, the movie gives Bill — as well as audiences — a taste of another life.

Will Americans who haven’t been abroad connect with this part of the movie? Or will they be bored with every second that Bill isn’t proactively trying to prove Allison’s innocence? At 140 minutes, “Stillwater” spends a lot more time on Bill’s new domestic situation with Virginie and Maya than viewers probably expect. But then, these scenes take time, since they’re tasked with conveying more than just the latest development in the case. (By contrast, straightforward genre movies have the luxury of being tight.) Ironically, the clunkiest scene here occurs when the cops show up.

McCarthy has more on his mind, using Damon’s character to “make hole” (as roughnecks do) in various assumptions Americans hold about themselves. Bill serves as a mirror of what foreigners see when a certain kind of cowboy barrels through the saloon doors of another country, hands on his holster, and it’s not necessarily flattering. On the surface, that may not satisfy everyone, but then, to coin a phrase, “Stillwater” runs deep.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition), July 8, 2021. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: A Focus Features release of a Participant, DreamWorks Pictures presentation of a Slow Pony, Anonymous Content production, in association with 3Dot Prods., Supernatural Pictures. Producers: Steve Golin, Tom McCarthy, Jonathan King, Liza Chasin. Executive producers: Jeff Skoll, David Linde, Robert Kessel, Mari Jo Winkler-Ioffreda, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré. Co-producers: Raphaël Benoliel, Melissa Wells.
• Crew: Director: Tom McCarthy. Screenplay: Tom McCarthy & Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain & Noé Debré. Camera: Masanobu Takayanagi. Editor: Tom McArdle. Music: Mychael Danna.
• With: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin, Lilou Siauvaud, Deanna Dunagan, Idir Azougli, Anne Le Ny.

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‘Stillwater’ Examines Lives in Wreckage, With Matt Damon at the Center

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Matt Damon ’s new movie, Stillwater , opens by building up to a gentle but pointed bit of misdirection, the subtle sort of deviation from our expectations meant to say as much about the audience as it does about the man at the story’s center — something of an running theme for this particular movie. When we first see Bill Baker (Damon), he’s waist-deep in rubble, the recognizable but devastated remains of what used to be someone’s home. Bill is a roughneck from Oklahoma, a state squarely, oft-tragically at the center of that mid-U.S. stretch known as Tornado Alley. His main line of work used to be oil rigs; when that labor dried up and he got laid off, he turned to construction. In the wake of a tornado, construction skills are easy to repurpose for demolition and recovery. So that’s what Bill does. He is, at this stage of his life, a maker of things. 

Yet thanks to that tornado, he’s getting his hands dirty in the remains of utter mess, the wreck of lives painfully unmade — another theme in the making. It’s clear early on that we’re meant to experience the world of this movie through Bill’s eyes, or at the very least firmly at his side. When he’s riding home from the wreckage with some colleagues, at dusk, he overhears them saying, “I don’t think Americans like to change,” and “I don’t think the tornado cares what Americans like.” Only they’re speaking Spanish. If Bill understands it, he doesn’t react to it; Damon’s face gives nothing away. Nor is the man overly emotive soon after, when paying a visit to his mother-in-law, Sharon (Deanna Dunagan), and the pair engage each other in naturalistically terse conversation, talk full of ellipses that we don’t realize are ellipses, because real people don’t speak as if they know strangers are watching — and these, the movie is committed to impressing upon us, are real people.

It’s not long before Bill hops on a plane, seemingly all of a sudden, and lands — in France. In sunny, coastal Marseilles, to be exact, a fact that lands with the force of a punchline, despite there being nothing funny at stake in the particulars of this voyage. It’s early in the movie, and Damon — a more than capable actor, whose physical commitment to his roles is, in contrast to his oft-touted ability to “disappear,” remarkably underrated — has already sold us on Bill as a man who could plausibly be the man that the movie wants us to believe he is. He is a “Yes, ma’am” type of guy with an Okie drawl, eyes often hiding behind his wraparound shades, jeans stiff, cap grimed with years of oil and sweat, and an array of plaid shirts, bulgy with hard-working, middle-age fat and muscle, that tells us there’s little distance between a work uniform and everyday life for this man. He’s in France but does not speak French. When it comes to picking accommodations, he opts for what must feel like a slice of home: a Best Western. He is pronouncedly, unabashedly, though not quite crudely, a so-called red-blooded American. So, a fish out of water — and eventually gasping for breath. Stillwater , which was directed and co-written by Tom McCarthy ( Spotlight ), has been advertised and described as a thriller. But it doesn’t open like one. It opens like this: with a slow accrual of details, in which it’s almost easy to miss Bill noticing what appear to be oil refineries just outside of Marseilles, as if he plans to stay awhile; or the fact that the hotel workers already know Bill’s name, making him less of a stranger in a strange land than, to the French eye, simply a little strange. This is an apt choice for a story in which a sense of being out of place while increasingly desperate, having to rely on others while navigating utterly unfamiliar cultural terrain, is going to matter a great deal; it is, in so many ways, the point of the story. 

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Rather, it’s one point of the story. The other part is the stuff that’s gotten Stillwater in a bit of trouble, earning it the courtesy of being called “a calamitous reworking of [a] notorious murder case.” Bill’s not here for pleasure; he’s here to visit his daughter, Allison ( Abigail Breslin ), who’s in prison for the murder of her French Arabic roommate — a case that bears an undeniable resemblance to the 2007 murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. This is a case that is more commonly associated with the woman wrongfully convicted — twice — of that murder : Amanda Knox , a fellow exchange student from Seattle, who along with her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, despite the fingerprints of the actual murderer, Rudy Guede, being present at the scene. Knox was fully exonerated in 2015. She has, it’s no surprise to hear, heard about Stillwater , heard about the resemblance to her case, and is not pleased . 

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And it’s true: The similarities are more than a matter of mere resemblance. The film in fact started, according to McCarthy , with the Kercher murder and the accused Knox more fully on its mind, until the director, who co-wrote the script, became more interested in the surrounding circumstances. But even Stillwater ’s expansion beyond the 2007 tragedy and its aftermath feels somewhat drawn from Knox’s story, given the film’s focus on the heroics — many of them, in the film’s case, wrongheaded — of the accused Knox’s father was one of her most diligent and vocal advocates throughout her ordeal. Stillwater ’s basic premise is that of a man who, after being slipped a note by his daughter and asked to pass it along to her attorney, feels compelled to save her in light of the system failing her. Allison gets a tip that she wants her attorney to look into: a man, she’s been told, has confessed to a murder that bears striking resemblance to that for which she’s imprisoned. Her attorney, calling the tip hearsay, feels it would be wiser not to give the young woman false hope and advises Bill to perform in kind. Instead, Bill steps in and begins to investigate on his own; he can’t afford the private detective that he’s been recommended. And besides, he has some making up to do with his daughter. Theirs is a strained relationship from the start. So begins much invention on the film’s part.

The complications of Stillwater and, really, the meat and bones of its story, have less to do with the Mercher-Knox story in itself than with these inventions. Suffice it to say that Bill has his reasons for wanting to do right by his daughter at this stage of her life and that, for her, it’s too little, too late. He also needs help navigating the labyrinth of a foreign country in which he does not speak the language, in any sense of the word; the movie doesn’t shy away from making good on the promise of his being wholly, stubbornly out of place. Bill, now having to extend his stay way beyond what he’d planned, falls in with a single mother, Virginie (Camille Cottin), and her daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), who become his guides, his English teachers, and — well. 

It makes for a satisfying film in some ways, primarily because of Damon, Cottin, and Siauvaud, and the mere curiosity of their playing house — she a French actress whose work in theater is way above Bill’s head, he a hands-on gentle giant with a past, a man who did not vote for Trump (which he’s of course asked), but only because, as a convicted felon, he couldn’t vote at all. No one has to say: But he would have . But much of what fascinates the movie seems to be the fact that he would have, which carries with it all manner of opportunity for presumption and assumption on the part of the audience. The movie knows what it’s doing when it tees these ideas up and gently circumvents them with a sometimes-effective veneer of human complexity. How will Bill respond when a bar owner he questions starts to spout off rampant anti-Arab comments? And when this story begins to boil down to a white American with an Oklahoma drawl hunting down a French Arab twentysomething who’s done wrong by his daughter, what violence is the film pushing us to expect? 

It’d be more openly ridiculous, feel far more manipulative, if not for Damon’s performance, which — despite his Cambridge-born, Harvard dropout roots — is widely appreciated for what people insist on calling his “Everyman” qualities . I’d sooner say that Damon’s magic is in making a certain plainness, a near-anonymity, defiantly charismatic. This is what makes him great in spy movies like The Good Shepherd , where he practically blends into the surrounding furniture of the movie, and what makes the “Where’s Waldo?” suspensions of belief at the heart the Bourne franchise, or the against-the-odds implausibility of The Martian , so effective. Stillwater depends on precisely that matrix of actorly skill and unvarnished likability; Damon’s other magic trick is removing all signs of the strings holding the performance together, like he’s his own CGI wizard, his own best special effect.

What this means for Stillwater : A  movie that’s complicated, moving, and accordingly frustrating. You can feel it trying to paint the most rigorously humane portrait of, not only its hero, but the thorny sidebars of the situation he’s found himself in — the tense racial discomforts, the nauseating swerves into Bill’s bad decisions. McCarthy’s prevailing approach here as in Spotlight , his nonstyle style, its tempered lack of visual flare paired with its heightened attentiveness to Damon’s (and Cottin’s!) centrifugal star power, feels at times like a ruse for obscuring just how carefully modulated, even calculating, it is in its politics. We can’t help but notice that as his daughter speaks freely about the woman whose murder she’s accused of as being her girlfriend, her red-blooded, prayerful, gun-owning father, who deploys the phrase “fake news” despite by and large refusing to discuss politics, doesn’t even wince. It’s on us, the movie seems to say, that we’d assume homophobia of the man. This is the sly power of McCarthy’s style and intentions: Our assumptions become more readily noticeable as, possibly, matters of projection. 

The illusion often works — until it doesn’t. The movie’s assured realism sometimes butts up against moments that feel woefully misguided, mangled in either the script, the editing room, or both — such as its failure to make proper dramatic sense of characters’ feelings in the aftermath of someone’s suicide attempt, or a late choice to save someone’s ass that doesn’t quite add up psychologically or make sense logistically. The movie’s attentive sense of noticing makes its flaws, its leaps in logic, easier to notice. But this seems to matter less to the filmmakers than what the style has to offer the movie in terms of a message; on this front, Stillwater is tellingly consistent. Damon and McCarthy have both spoken at length about the time they spent in Oklahoma, among real-life roughnecks, earning their trust, learning their ways, feeling more confident in the goodness of the world, the nuances in people, thanks to the lessons learned and memories shared. (“It was truly intellectually exciting and engaging,” McCarthy has said, astonished to the point of near-condescension. “I was impressed by them on a lot of levels. Truly impressed by them.”) 

The realism is not incidental and not unsatisfying. But nor is it always as wise as it would seem. In the best case, what Stillwater encourages are genuine instances of reflection, particularly for and about a man in Bill’s shoes. The connections drawn between anti-Arab sentiment in both France and the U.S. are, by brunt of who Bill is, ripe for consideration. To lean too heavily into this subject would be to shatter the illusion of Bill’s ironic complexity — ironic, that is, for the people who’d be prone to writing him off. But the movie is invested in Bill’s complexity to the point of most everyone else, everything else, getting short shrift. A scene of Bill’s bullheaded, indiscreet wandering through what the movie depicts as something like the Marseilles projects, beholden to the familiar codes of snitching and the like that you’d expect of a scene set in the United States, ends in violence — the central point being a reiteration of Bill simply not knowing how to navigate a place such as this, with the undertone being a little less easily overlooked, a bit too slow to question the racial stereotypes piling up by the second. 

It all — all of it, including the slow-building romance — leads up to a climax in which Bill makes a desperate, unwise decision. He risks everything. Ultimately, as in the case of its relationship to the Amanda Knox story, the movie can’t get around the consequences, for everyone else in this tale, of choosing to be so fully tied to Bill, so singularly focused on his desires and regrets and the idiosyncrasies that make him more than a stereotype, that the decision he makes somehow primarily moves us for what it means to his life, his chances, when there’s in fact another person who’s life is stake. A mistake is made; a rash decision is pushed to a devastating conclusion. Devastating for whom, is the question this film can’t quite face with the fullness that the question deserves.

In moments like this, it’s worth stepping back and asking ourselves who the movie is making us care about, why, and at what cost. In Bill’s case, the choices that pile up toward the end make us feel so fully for him that the movie nearly drives off-road into a rut from which it can’t recover. Dramatically, it works: The agitation we feel on his behalf is effective. Only when it ends do we realize what’s being left unsaid, whose life is ultimately rendered far less worthy of our sympathy and attention. This is when the movie shows us, ultimately and unabashedly, what it is — and suffers for its lack of reflection over what it could be. 

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Stillwater Reviews

The lack of genre identity does not always work in the film's favor. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2024

Stillwater refuses to belittle and judge its characters, and challenges viewers to do the same.

Full Review | Jul 27, 2023

Caught me by surprise with its fascinating journey of redemption, acceptance, & Beauty. Don’t get my wrong the movie evolves in ways I did not expect some for the better & some for the bad.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Stillwater is pure drama that turns into a crime thriller when you least expect it. This is Matt Damon‘s best performance in the last 10 years.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 30, 2023

A damn effective drama about the struggles accompanying second chances and unshakable reputations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 9, 2022

A classic narrative in the style of later Clint Eastwood, the film focuses on the protagonist's quest and his internal transformation. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 4, 2022

Stillwater is so much more than its simple logline would lead you to believe, blending sentimentality with suspense to create a brutally captivating concoction.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

I prefer McCarthy’s approach which keeps the characters front-and-center, giving them and their relationships room to grow even if it means running a little long.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

The final act turns the heat up a bit, as Bill gets closer and turns to more desperate means. The conclusion will raise some eyebrows, but in the main Stillwater is a solid drama that plays to the crowd effectively.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2022

As a work of fiction, Stillwater feels near-masterpiece level with Tom McCarthy, Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin giving possibly the best performances of their careers. The movie, however, is undeniably tied to a real-life tragedy and feels manipulative

Full Review | Feb 12, 2022

The movie really keeps you guessing as to the true motives of the characters with its complex plot.

Full Review | Dec 28, 2021

This might be a crime thriller, but thrill it does not. Slow, distracted and unfocused, its narrative makes giant leaps one moment and drags its feet the next.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 7, 2021

If we can't take responsibility for our own choices, then there can be no moving forward and your life will become a prison of your own making.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 26, 2021

A slow burn that is far longer than it needs to be to get its point across. However, Matt Damon brings a lot of heart to this one, and makes it worth watching.

If tied to the real-life case, it's irresponsible and irredeemable. Separated from these knotty ties to the real world and accepted as a piece of fiction, it's a decent drama that begins strong before eventually losing its bearings and its believability.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 23, 2021

Absent the sheen of a noble cause, Stillwater is a frustrating effort without a point.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Oct 23, 2021

There's a dangerous lack of verisimilitude that hangs over the entire film. But McCarthy remains firm in his decision not to offer the usual satisfactions expected of these kind of American films. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2021

Within half an hour its drama loses emotional records and dries up like an oil well in the desert when Matt Damon plays an ordinary hero lost in Marseille. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 10, 2021

Stillwater's sharp emotional claws shred Bill's moral authority and the myth of American exceptionalism. In ways both shocking and right, director Tom McCarthy reinvents the story seemingly in real time.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 2, 2021

Stillwater is the sort of film Hollywood used to make effortlessly: big stars, intriguing characters, glamorous setting, juicy set-up, some minor violence.

Full Review | Sep 2, 2021

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn't commit. A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn't commit. A father travels from Oklahoma to France to help his estranged daughter, who is in prison for a murder she claims she didn't commit.

• Tom McCarthy
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• Camille Cottin
• Abigail Breslin
• 541 User reviews
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• 2 nominations

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• Trivia Tom McCarthy explained in an interview how he and Matt Damon immersed themselves in the culture of Oklahoma oil "roughnecks" for the film: "Matt and I started going to Oklahoma early on to get a taste of the place and the people and spending time with roughnecks, in particular. They really opened up their lives to us, and their worlds and their families. They were incredibly instrumental in helping us shape the story."
• Goofs When Allison jumps into the water, she is wearing a white panties. Seconds after when she is floating she is wearing a striped shorts.

[last lines]

Allison : [back home, sitting on the porch] Everything looks the same here. Nothings' changed. Don't you think?

Bill : No, Ally, I don't. It all looks different to me. I don't hardly recognize it any more.

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User reviews 541

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• July 30, 2021 (United States)
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Review: Matt Damon is a man on a Marseille mission in the uneven but surprising ‘Stillwater’

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At the beginning of “Stillwater,” Bill Baker (Matt Damon), an Oklahoma construction worker, stands amid the remnants of a house that’s recently been destroyed by a tornado. He’s dependably good at his job, even if it’s just a temporary gig, something to tide him over while he looks for a more permanent position on an oil rig. Money and work have been scarce for a while, and the tornado, without affecting him directly, puts a cruel accent on the litany of disasters — alcoholism, unemployment, family estrangement, a criminal record — that his life has become. He’s gotten used to combing through the wreckage; when he leaves town a few beats later, it’s clear he’s not leaving behind much.

Although it draws its title from this Middle American city, most of Tom McCarthy’s methodical and surprising new drama takes place half a world away in the French port city of Marseille, where Bill finds himself on a curious and lonely assignment. He’s visiting his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), who’s spent five years in prison for the murder of her girlfriend, Lena, whom she met while studying abroad in Marseille. The story was loosely inspired by events surrounding the 2007 killing of the British student Meredith Kercher, though McCarthy and his co-writers are not especially interested in a straightforward retelling of that tragedy.

Allison, the movie’s Amanda Knox figure, has always maintained her innocence. With four years left to serve, she asks her father to contact her attorney (Anne Le Ny) with new evidence that might persuade the authorities to reopen her case. A teenager, Akim, has allegedly implicated himself in a scrap of barroom hearsay, though it’s too flimsy a lead to persuade the attorney. But Bill, spying an opportunity to make up for his past negligence as a dad, stubbornly undertakes his own search for the elusive, possibly nonexistent Akim, all while navigating a city and a language that couldn’t feel more foreign.

To him, anyway. Centering its protagonist’s stern, bearded frown in nearly every scene, “Stillwater” registers Bill’s cultural confusion without necessarily indulging it. Unveiled this week at the Cannes Film Festival , a little further along France’s Mediterranean coast, the movie effectively merges the patient investigative rigor of McCarthy’s Oscar-winning newsroom drama “Spotlight” and the cross-cultural humanism of his earlier film “The Visitor.” Put another way, it’s a somber crime thriller wrapped around a sly fish-out-of-water comedy, in which Bill is invariably the butt of the joke.

“I’m a dumbass,” Bill says more than once, and the movie, however sympathetic to his plight, doesn’t really contradict him. Stiff of gait, clenched of jaw and plaid of shirt, Damon strides through the picture with a genial, determined cluelessness from which every lingering vestige of Jason Bourne has been carefully purged. Bill gets an A for effort, but the challenges of a murder investigation — tracing Instagram feeds, chasing down frightened witnesses — would prove daunting even to someone who knows the Marseille waterfront.

Fortunately, Bill meets a friendly bilingual guide in Virginie (a terrific Camille Cottin), a theater actress who regards this Sooner State refugee with kindness, amusement and an almost sociological fascination: Does he own a gun? Did he vote for Trump? (The answers are worth hearing for yourself.) Virginie also has a winsome young daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), who naturally hits it off with Bill immediately, raising the specter of a redemptive second shot at fatherhood. The mutually beneficial arrangement that follows — Virginie helps Bill with his search, Bill becomes her handyman and Maya’s babysitter — is one of those sentimental developments you grudgingly and then gladly accept, because the actors have such warm, involving chemistry and because there’s something irresistible about the kindness of strangers.

The best passages of “Stillwater” allow that kindness to flourish and take center frame, temporary liberating the movie from its dogged procedural template. McCarthy, a straightforward craftsman, has a gift for teasing out the humanity in every unshowy frame, and, working with cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi and editor Tom McArdle, he nicely conveys the passage of time and the blooming of fresh emotional possibilities. Those possibilities become still more heartrending when Allison is allowed out on parole for a day, in scenes that Breslin plays with a wrenching mix of toughness, resignation and despair. Through her eyes, we see the Marseille that she fell in love with and briefly wonder if her crucible of suffering might also mark a potential new beginning.

The filmmakers, of course, have chosen France’s oldest and most diverse city for a reason, given its longstanding reputation as a gritty hotbed of crime and poverty — a reputation that’s been partly fueled by the movies themselves, among them classic thrillers like “The French Connection” and “Army of Shadows” (and the recent “Transit,” a classic in the making). McCarthy has cited Marseille noir novels as an inspiration for his screenplay, which he wrote with Marcus Hinchey and the French writers Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré, who were doubtless crucial in fleshing out a persuasively inhabited street-level portrait of contemporary France. Notably, Bidegain and Debré have also fashioned “Stillwater” into a curious echo of their 2015 neo-western, “Les Cowboys,” another father-daughter rescue story set at a Franco-American cultural crossroads.

In “Les Cowboys,” a white man is driven mad by the realization that his daughter has run off with her Muslim boyfriend. Although it’s cut from different genre cloth, “Stillwater” doesn’t have to dig too deep to uncover similarly ugly sentiments in Marseille as Bill’s search for an Arab suspect brings him face to face with all manner of casual anti-immigrant bigotry. Bill, it’s worth noting, comes off rather better by comparison: He seems appreciably less racist than some of the locals, and if this devout Christian has any negative thoughts about his daughter’s passionate romance with an Arab woman, he keeps them to himself. His mission here isn’t motivated by religion, politics or ideology, but by the simple desire to bring his daughter home. Nothing could be more primal or understandable.

Our sympathetic identification with Bill, in other words, is the reason this movie exists. It’s also the reason a viewer might find “Stillwater” troubling as well as absorbing. This is the story, after all, of a white male American charging into a French Arab community (represented by fine actors including Moussa Maaskri, Nassiriat Mohamed and Idir Azougli) and running roughshod over cultural sensitivities in his aggressive pursuit of what he considers justice. It’s also ostensibly the story of a dead Arab woman who nonetheless remains at the narrative margins and who exists primarily as a catalyst for her lover’s incarceration and potential exoneration.

The standard defense against this criticism is that the filmmakers are smart and self-aware enough to have anticipated it. In this case they’ve also sought to defuse it by treating Bill’s narrative centrality as a point of subversion, a means of rejecting the trumped-up myth of American exceptionalism that he represents. Bill’s outsider status, a source of pathos and comedy in the first two acts, threatens to become a moral liability in the third. McCarthy pushes the thriller narrative in directions more extreme and harrowing than plausible, bringing Bill and Allison’s story to an unexpected point of reckoning. It’s possible to be genuinely moved by that reckoning — and to admire the obvious intelligence and care that have been brought to bear on “Stillwater” — without fully buying the trail of contrivances and compromises it leaves in its wake.

‘Stillwater’

(In English and French with English subtitles) Rating: R, for language Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes Playing: Opens July 30 in general release

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Stillwater review: Matt Damon is a dad unmoored in atmospheric drama

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

By the trailer alone, Stillwater sells itself as fairly conventional kind of thriller: a recasting of the real-life Amanda Knox story, told through a lens of righteous parental vengeance. And in its lesser moments Tom McCarthy 's drama does lean toward a sort of Liam Neeson implausibility. At its best though, it's much quieter and more unsettling than that — the slow-churn character study of a man ( Matt Damon ) who is arguably more lost than the incarcerated daughter ( Abigail Breslin ) he's so desperate to free will ever be.

Damon neatly disappears into the role of Bill Baker, a marginally employed Oklahoma oil rigger in stiff Wranglers and wraparound shades. He's the kind of guy whose thousand-yard squint and flying-eagle tattoos look like they were earned the hard way, but he also won't sit down to a sandwich without bowing his head for a proper blessing first. And nearly all the money he makes from his itinerant work goes directly towards trips to France — the same long-haul flight path through Atlanta, Frankfurt, then finally Marseille — to visit Breslin's Allison, a onetime exchange student now more than halfway into a nine-year prison sentence for killing her lover there.

That the victim was a girl and what Bill calls an "Arab" helped make the case an international sensation; inevitably, the headlines have faded, but his hope of rooting out miracles in a byzantine foreign legal system remains. Whatever the allure of a city like Marseille — cobbled streets and seaside cliffs, the eternal siren song of French pastries — he moves through it in a blinkered bubble, checking into the same drab Best Western and taking home his lonely foot-long dinners from a nearby Subway.

A chance encounter with a bohemian single mother named Virginie ( Call My Agent 's Camille Cottin ) and her young daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvad) offers the first inkling of real human interaction he seems to have had outside his brief and only marginally welcome visits to Allison. (He was not, it is heavily implied, a prime candidate for father of the year before her imprisonment.) Virginie turns out to be a godsend when it comes to navigating the intricacies of a country whose customs and language he can't begin to understand, though it's never entirely clear why such a lovely woman would do so much for a gruff and largely charmless stranger — "Refugees, zero waste… He's your new cause," a friend says to her, bemused — except for the fact that he is, you know, Matt Damon.

McCarthy, an Oscar-winning writer-director whose films include Spotlight and The Station Agent , generally crafts the kind of lived-in adult dramas whose unshowy intelligence belies the need for narrative shock and awe. So it's jarring when his script takes a soapier turn, swerving abruptly into not-without-my-daughter Neeson territory and away from the more patient, almost languid onion-peeling of its setup. Damon and Cottin sell the tone shift better than they should, and Breslin brings an itchy urgency to Allison — who even in her too-brief scenes manages to register not merely as a cipher or a victim of circumstance but a flawed, furious girl with her own hopes and agendas.

A lot will probably be made of Damon's foray into MAGA-Daddy drag, and it's a testament to his tightly coiled performance that Bill comes off as nuanced and sympathetic as he does: Though the intrinsic likability that makes him a movie star may be doing half the heavy lifting, you want to invest in this blunt, difficult man. McCarthy also embeds him so deeply in the daily rhythms of Marseille — the back alleys, grubby kebab shops, and sudden dazzling flashes of sun-dappled Gallic scenery — that the movie becomes a kind of immersive travelogue too. The unhurried rhythms of those scenes feel like their own reward, more compelling and true to life than any notion of third-act reveals or tidy cinematic endings. Grade: B

Related content:

• Matt Damon on the surprising life lessons he learned shadowing roughnecks for Stillwater
• Camille Cottin on Stillwater , House of Gucci , and coming to terms with international fame
• Matt Damon is an Oklahoma roughneck out to save his daughter in Stillwater first look

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Matt damon in tom mccarthy’s ‘stillwater’: film review | cannes 2021.

The star plays an Oklahoma oil worker who travels to Marseille to help Abigail Breslin as his imprisoned daughter in this cross-cultural drama.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Tom McCarthy cites Mediterranean noirs as the inspiration for Stillwater , but there’s little of that mystique in this uneven ‘90s throwback, despite the mostly untapped potential of its atmospheric setting in the French port city of Marseille. Matt Damon gives a solid performance as an unemployed Oklahoma oil rig worker with a messy past, determined to do right by the daughter stuck in prison for a murder she claims she didn’t commit. But that story is clunky, old-fashioned and predictable when it’s not implausible. In any case, it’s less involving than the shot at renewal the failed family man gets with a French single mother.

The latter role, Virginie, is played by Call My Agent! lead Camile Cottin in a quietly luminous performance, juggling French and English dialogue with the same relaxed warmth. As Damon’s Bill Baker grows closer to Virginie and her 9-year-old daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud, a charming natural), this reticent man who wears his disappointment like a heavy overcoat slowly opens up to the possibilities of a life he had thought off-limits. That thread taps into the same kind of sensitively observed cross-cultural connections McCarthy explored in The Visitor , which, along with The Station Agent , remains his most accomplished work as director — regardless of that best picture Oscar for Spotlight .

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Release date : Friday, July 30 Venue : Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Cast : Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin, Lilou Siauvaud, Idir Azougli, Deanna Dunagan, Anne Le Ny, Moussa Maaskri, Naidra Ayadi, Nassiriat Mohamed, Mahia Zrouki Director : Tom McCarthy Screenwriters : Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré

Unfortunately, the A plot keeps dragging the movie down. Following its out of competition premiere in Cannes , this late July Focus release looks likely to make only a brief theatrical detour en route to streaming platforms.

Scripted by McCarthy and Marcus Hinchey with French writers Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré, best known for their collaborations with Jacques Audiard, the screenplay’s earliest draft is from a decade ago and it does indeed play like something that’s been gathering dust in a drawer. There are allusions to current-day red-state America in the blinkered worldview that is part of Bill’s baggage, but that contemporary veneer is undernourished and the story’s political teeth have no bite.

Bill’s daughter Allison ( Abigail Breslin ) is five years into a nine-year sentence for the murder of Lina, the French Arab girlfriend she met while attending college in Marseille. Allison’s mother committed suicide for reasons never revealed, and the declining health of the maternal grandmother who raised her (Deanna Dunagan) means she can no longer travel. So Bill flies to Marseille as often as he can, delivering supplies, picking up her laundry and praying for Allison even though her affection for him seems muted. He was a screw-up before going into recovery for alcohol and drugs, but we only ever get generic hints about the reasons for her coolness toward him.

When Allison learns new information about Lina’s murder, implicating a young man named Akim from the projects, she asks her dad to deliver a letter to her lawyer Leparq (Anne Le Ny), requesting that she have the case reopened. But Leparq declines, pointing out that hearsay is not considered evidence. So while Bill keeps this from Allison, he makes it his mission to find Akim and prove his worth to his daughter. This despite her having made clear in her letter to the lawyer that she considers her father incapable and untrustworthy.

The language barrier and a lack of understanding of how the different social strata of Marseille work make his task a difficult one. But he gets help when he strikes up a friendship with theater actress Virginie, who has a habit of adopting causes.

Unfurling over a sluggish two hours plus, Stillwater is least convincing when McCarthy attempts to build suspense, with most of that work being done by Mychael Danna’s score. The late plot twists become almost risible, once Akim (Idir Azougli) enters the picture.

Part of the problem also is that there’s never much reason to invest in Allison, despite the heavy burden Bill clearly carries. Her case was big news at the time, and in a town where poverty and race draw sharp dividing lines, the sentiment of neither public nor press was much in favor of “the American lesbian.” Breslin has a few tender moments when she gets reacquainted with her father and his new adoptive family during a day release. But mostly, Allison remains remote as a character, especially when she blurts out heavy-handed lines like, “Life is brutal.” The fact that she might not be entirely blameless in Lina’s death should make her more interesting, not less.

Considering that Bidegain was a co-writer on Audiard’s great prison drama A Prophet , an enthralling representation of Muslim identity in a French microcosm, the race elements here are fairly basic. Liberal-minded Virginie bristles at the indiscriminate urge of many to put another Arab kid behind bars as they get closer to tracking down Akim, while for Bill, that kind of kneejerk racism is so familiar he barely notices it.

But those differences are also what makes the gradual transition from friendship to romance of Bill and Virginie so disarming. He’s a religious man who literally wears his patriotism on his sleeve in a bald eagle tattoo. He’s also the owner of not one but two guns, the idea of which Virginie finds incomprehensible. In one amusing scene, while her friend Nedjma (Naidra Ayadi) is helping them with some Instagram detective work, she asks Bill if he voted for Trump. He says only that he didn’t vote because of his arrest record.

Damon finds understated humor in this uncultured man who is nudged for the first time in his life to see himself — and by extension Allison — as the outsiders, the way the rest of the world sees Americans. A telling moment in an early scene finds him in the back of a van with a tornado cleanup crew chattering away in Spanish, while he sits in absent silence. His time in Marseille shows in subtle ways that he’s learning to see beyond otherness, and Damon never overplays that softening of Bill’s closed-off views.

The actor’s many scenes with young Siauvaud are quite lovely, avoiding cutesiness while gently showing Bill’s pleasure in getting to experience the kind of bonding he skipped with his own daughter. His awkward comments when Virginie invites him to watch a rehearsal of a play she’s doing show how completely he’s outside his comfort zone. (“What am I gonna do in a fuckin’ theater?” he asks Allison earlier, with blunt self-awareness.) But the melting of the distance between them is so well played by Damon and Cottin you keep wishing this was their story. A gorgeous interlude in which they dance to Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” with Maya demanding to get in on the act, further cements that desire.

Bill may have stayed on in Marseille to remain in Allison’s life even after her rejection. But it’s the different version of himself he discovers there that provides the often clumsy Stillwater with some grace and heart.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Cast: Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin, Camille Cottin, Lilou Siauvaud, Idir Azougli, Deanna Dunagan, Anne Le Ny, Moussa Maaskri, Naidra Ayadi, Nassiriat Mohamed, Mahia Zrouki Production companies: Participant, DreamWorks Pictures, Slow Pony, Anonymous Content, in association with 3Dot Productions, Supernatural Pictures Distribution: Focus Features Director: Tom McCarthy Screenwriters: Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré Producers: Steve Golin, Tom McCarthy, Jonathan King, Liza Chasin Executive producers: Jeff Skoll, David Linde, Robert Kessel, Mari Jo Winkler-Ioffreda, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré Director of photography: Masanobu Takayanagi Production designer: Philip Messina Costume designer: Karen Muller Serreau Music: Mychael Danna Editor: Tom McArdle Casting: Kerry Barden, Paul Schnee, Anne Fremiot

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clock This article was published more than  2 years ago

‘Stillwater,’ with Matt Damon, is four movies in one, and only some of them work

In “Stillwater,” Matt Damon plays Bill Baker, an Oklahoma roughneck who works on oil rigs by day and prays before his fast-food dinner at night. Laconic and unsmiling, Bill has a lot on his mind, the substance and complexity of which is revealed with deliberate finesse in the course of a movie best described as wide-ranging, literally and figuratively.

No sooner has the audience adapted to Bill’s workmanlike daily rhythms than he is suddenly on a plane to Marseille, where he checks into a Best Western and is greeted with a French-accented, “Welcome back, Mr. Baker.” Thus Tom McCarthy, who co-wrote and directed “Stillwater,” delivers the first surprise, introducing his protagonist and his quest not with the usual setup and sudden reversal that constitute typical inciting incidents, but in the middle of things — in this case the grind of having a college-age daughter serving a nine-year prison sentence in France, where she has been convicted of murdering her roommate.

Bill, it turns out, makes regular trips to Marseille, to deliver laundry, news from home and not much else. His relationship with his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) is strained, their conversations stilted and wary. The letter she asks him to deliver to her attorney contains a potentially exculpatory lead in her case, but she doesn’t trust him enough to let him know what it is. When the lawyer gives Bill the brushoff, he takes it upon himself to follow up. What ensues is a fish-out-of-water procedural in which a working-class father from middle America must navigate Marseille’s polyglot streets, not just to free his daughter but earn back her respect.

That material alone would seem to be enough for an absorbing drama — one that plays like “Taken,” but without the outlandish violence and overcompensating derring-do. Inspired by the case of Amanda Knox, who in 2009 was convicted of murdering a fellow exchange student in Italy, McCarthy uses the bare bones of that story as a jumping off point. Along with co-writers Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré and Marcus Hinchey, McCarthy in fact turns “Stillwater” into several movies at once: one part international thriller, one part meditation on America’s role in a changing and pluralistic society, one part father-daughter psychodrama and one part improbable romance.

Inevitably, some of those threads work better than others. Early in the film, Bill befriends a French actress named Virginie (Camille Cottin) and her daughter Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), a precocious and openhearted 9-year-old who is fascinated by Bill’s facility with tools. The three develop a familial bond that feels warm and organic, in large part thanks to the three actors’ natural, unforced chemistry. Virginie is fascinated by Bill, too, but for different reasons than Maya. She and her bohemian friends playfully interrogate him about owning guns and voting for Donald Trump (his answer to the latter is yet another breadcrumb revealing his character’s past). One of “Stillwater’s” animating questions is whether Bill and Virginie will see past their preconceived ideas about each other to connect simply as two decent, if different, human beings.

Some of “Stillwater’s” plotlines aren’t nearly as effective, or convincing: Scenes with Bill and Allison feel perfunctory, and although it becomes clear that the two have a lot of issues, they never seem to assume their full weight between the two. A sudden development late in the film suffers from the same superficiality. No sooner does it happen for no apparent narrative reason than it disappears, never to be referenced again.

McCarthy, who won an Oscar for his journalistic procedural “Spotlight,” knows how to burrow into a place and let human behavior tell the story. With “Stillwater,” things get too plotty, especially when Bill tries to find his inner Liam Neeson (again, with utterly unconvincing results). It doesn’t help that Damon plays Bill with a lack of affect and a fake Southern accent that recall Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade.” He’s between a rock and a stone in a movie that clearly couldn’t have been made without his star power, but in which his best efforts to hide that charisma — behind a billed gimme-cap and a near-constant grimace — keep his character at constant arm’s length.

Still, there are old-fashioned cinematic pleasures to be had in “Stillwater,” including Mychael Danna’s exquisite orchestral score, Masanobu Takayanagi’s handsome cinematography and those wonderful scenes with Damon and Cottin, the latter of whom is making a Hollywood movie debut fresh from the cult Netflix series “Call My Agent!” What’s more, McCarthy brings compassion and insight to “Stillwater’s” political subtext, which is less interested in ascribing Americans’ misdeeds to belligerence or intolerance, but to our singular blend of naivete and self-belief. As in life, what drives most of the drama in this overstuffed but often thought-provoking movie is a failure to communicate.

R.  At area theaters. In English and French with subtitles. Contains coarse language. 140 minutes.

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‘Stillwater’ Review: Matt Damon Is a Dad on a Mission in Tom McCarthy’s Affecting Turducken of a Movie

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features will release the film in theaters on Friday, July 30.

A strained but strangely affecting turducken of a movie that bakes a dad-on-a-mission thriller together with a heartwarming fish-out-of-water story and then a brutal crime drama before glazing the whole thing with a marvelously goateed Matt Damon , Tom McCarthy ’s “ Stillwater ” is the kind of original Hollywood production that would make you say “they don’t make them like that anymore” if only they had ever made them quite this way in the first place. That it’s a French co-production surely accounts for a portion of the film’s structural oddness — several plot points feel lost in translation, even if the whole thing somehow manages to still make sense — but quirks of financing can only go so far to explain a 140-minute transatlantic saga that’s equal parts “Taken,” “Paddington,” and “Prisoners,” one after the other.

No movie with that particular genetic makeup is going to be all that subtle, and McCarthy — who co-wrote the script with Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré, and Marcus Hinchy — definitely seems to be drifting closer to “The Cobbler” than “Spotlight” during the opening scenes. Sitting in the back of a van as the Spanish-speaking migrant workers in the front seats talk about how much Americans hate to change (hold that thought!), widowed oil roughneck Bill Baker is such a broad caricature of a red-blooded Oklahoman that Damon looks more like a millionaire in disguise on an episode of “Undercover Boss.” We’re talking camo hats, prayers over a Sonic burger, bicep tattoos of an eagle holding a skull, and a pair of black sunglasses that hide any trace of human feeling or any other feminine nonsense like that. Even foreigners can’t help but ask if he voted for Trump (sorry, but this is a spoiler-free review).

And wherever he goes, Bill brings America with him. The biggest change he’s willing to make when he flies to France is a switch from Sonic to Subway. He even stays at a Best Western in Marseille, and not only because anywhere else would cost too much over the course of the two weeks he’s abroad to visit his daughter Alison in jail (a fraught Abigail Breslin, believable down to the grime on her teeth as a thinly veiled Amanda Knox type who’s served five years of a nine year sentence for allegedly murdering her college girlfriend).

But Bill’s eau de American isn’t all bad; while he may be hiding a troubled past under those shades, and eager to impose his will on foreign countries that never wanted him there to begin with, he’s also a genuine helper. He pays his mother-in-law’s bills even though he’s broke. He gets the little girl in the next room over (the adorable Lilou Siauvaud as Maya) a spare hotel key when her theater actress single mother Virginie (“Call My Agent!” star Camille Cottin) comes back late one day, and when she and Maya move to their new flat Bill even stops by to help fix her broken wiring. So he’ll be damned if he’s not going to help his own daughter — who he’s failed in the worst way for most of her life — when she sneaks him some new evidence on the real killer. Alison’s lawyer thinks it’s too circumstantial to sway a judge? No problem, Bill will hunt down the “tall, light-skinned Arab kid” who stabbed his daughter’s ex himself. With a description like that and a handful of helpful racists who are eager to throw any immigrant kid in prison for the rest of their life, what could go wrong?

Needless to say, Bill Baker isn’t exactly Jason Bourne — he’s not even Jeremy Renner — and things go sideways in a hurry. But as “Stillwater” gradually runs deeper, it begins to flow in some most unusual directions. It wouldn’t be revealing too much to say that Bill’s bond with Virginie and Maya strengthens over time, as weeks stretch into months and the two single parents begin to form a platonic kind of family. McCarthy’s naturalistic direction allows the movie to seamlessly pivot between modes even though the script is fragmented into clear act breaks, and there’s a palpable sense of warmth to the long scenes of Bill picking Maya up from school or helping Virginie rehearse for an audition.

Damon’s performance is graced with a quiet softness that offsets the sheer volume of the character he’s playing, and the light comedy of the well-intentioned culture clashes between he and his new roommates is so endearing that you almost forget the tragic reason why Bill came to France in the first place. The light that emanates from his hope for a second chance sparks a new warmth in everyone around him, and there’s a vivid sense that his own ability to make peace with his demons might inspire others to do the same (credit to Cottin for making a wildly contrived living situation feel like a real makeshift home). Acceptance is a hard thing to come by, but even the smallest measure of it can change the way you see the world.

Of course, no matter how beguilingly entertaining it is to watch “Stillwater” drift away from the movie you thought it would be, you know that it’s only a matter of time before the devil gets his due. There are clumsy hints of what’s to come along the way — including a scene of terrible self-harm that offers bafflingly little follow-up, and feels even more half-baked than any of the film’s hesitant overtures toward the soul of America’s forgotten man — and the switch that flips the third act into gear isn’t quite as convincing as it needs to be to fulfill its purpose as a test of faith.

All the same, there’s a whackadoo elegance to the way Bill tears at the scab over his soul during the final minutes. Whatever “sure, Jan”-level twists McCarthy throws our way at the 11th hour (and there’s at least one doozy) are mitigated by a final scene that hits with a surprising amount of force, as Damon and Breslin share a moment that cuts to the heart of what “Stillwater” was always really about, and offers these broken people an outside chance at peace if by some miracle they still have the strength to live with it.

“Stillwater” premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features will release it in theaters in the U.S. on Friday, July 30.

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Stillwater Review

06 Aug 2021

Perhaps surprisingly, Stillwater is not a straight-to-streaming film about a killer shark terrorising a sleepy fishing village or a faux rockumentary about Billy Crudup’s band in Almost Famous . Instead, Tom McCarthy ’s first foray into adult filmmaking since the Oscar-winning Spotlight delivers two films for the price of one. It starts as a tough-ish dad-on-a-mission movie, before morphing into a relationship drama and then back again. If it never completely integrates its genre choices, Stillwater is still the kind of mid-budget grown-up movie that Hollywood supposedly doesn’t make anymore. Originally planned for Awards season 2020 — instead it’s bowed at Cannes — it delivers a mostly entertaining, if overlong thriller-drama (thrama?).

The father-possessed aspect sees Matt Damon ’s Bill Baker, an oil driller from Stillwater, Oklahoma (the title has another significance), who crosses the pond to visit his daughter Allison ( Abigail Breslin ) in a Marseille prison. Charged with murdering her girlfriend Lina, Allison has run out of legal options and gives Bill a letter that may represent a way to re-examine the case. When Bill runs up against hardnosed French judges, he takes matters into his own hands, seeking out detectives and DNA tests, talking to witnesses and chasing down suspects. If it sounds like Liam Neeson territory, it’s played on a much more human scale — there are dead ends and realistic fist fights — and the plot points are filtered through the estranged (but not particularly gripping) relationship between Bill and Allison, played out in snatched prison visits.

The whole thing is solidly anchored by Matt Damon.

Bill is helped on his quest by theatre actor Virginie ( Call My Agent! breakout Camille Cottin) and, around halfway through, Stillwater shifts gear. At this point, McCarthy becomes much more interested in Bill finding a new lease of life with Virginie and her eight-year-old daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud). There are interesting dynamics at play here as the God-fearing, gun-loving (a shotgun and a Glock) American tries to find common ground with a liberal French thesp (“What am I going to do in a fucking theatre?” Bill says at one point), Damon, Cottin (excellent) and young Siauvaud creating a warm, inviting chemistry that makes the potentially convenient relationship convincing.

Co-screenwriter Thomas Bidegain is a frequent collaborator of Jacques Audiard and Stillwater tries but doesn’t always succeed in channelling the French filmmaker’s mixture of character study and genre licks — the concentration on family drama dissipates the momentum of the investigation, and some of the thriller tropes feel a contrivance amidst well-observed, intimate moments. Still, McCarthy’s filmmaking is confident, the Marseille setting feels fresh, and the end goes to a different, interesting place. The whole thing is solidly anchored by Damon, who is believable as a taciturn man, dealing with regret over his existing relationships while tentatively forming new ones, discovering tenderness and a different way of living. Amidst the procedures and the punch-ups, he makes Stillwater worthwhile.

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Stillwater Is a Difficult, Curious Film About Havoc Wreaked By Americans Abroad

By Richard Lawson

What a strange thing, to sit in a theater in France and watch an American movie about France. Though, I’m not sure that Stillwater —the new film from Spotlight director Tom McCarthy , which premiered here at Cannes on Thursday—is actually about France. Rather, it concerns the way that Americans, or maybe just America itself, behaves abroad. From one vantage point, Stillwater may just be a sentimental and lurid riff on the infamous Amanda Knox case. But I think McCarthy has something bigger in mind, which he pokes at intriguingly throughout his movie’s considerable sprawl.

Knox became infamous when she was arrested, charged, and convicted for the murder of a fellow university student while studying abroad in Italy. (She was later exonerated and sent home to the States, but conspiracy-theory questions about her guilt or innocence have persisted in the years since.) McCarthy shifts that action to Marseilles and begins long past the trial, when twenty-something Allison ( Abigail Breslin ) has been imprisoned for five years. Her once-estranged ne’er do well father, Bill ( Matt Damon ), regularly travels from rural Oklahoma to visit her. The details of Allison’s specific case are gradually explained to us, a murky night of violence that left Allison’s girlfriend, who was Arab, dead, and a mysterious second suspect in the wind.

Stillwater delves, both directly and indirectly, into the fraught racial politics of contemporary France, as new information in the case leads Bill into a housing project largely home to Black and Arab people pushed into the margins of French society and very often unfairly targeted by police. In these scenes, the film treads dangerously close to a hoary cinematic form: communities of color used as exotic, menacing backdrop for white heroics. I think McCarthy is aware of that, though, and is using a bad, tired structure to turn the commentary back on Bill and Allison—and on their country.

There is a long interruption in the investigation part of the film, as Bill finds himself improbably ensconced with two locals—mom Virgine ( Camille Cottin ) and her young daughter, Maya ( Lilou Slauvaud )—and starts to build a new happy life for himself. This stretch of the film is almost its own movie, a sweet, lo-fi look at family found and chosen. Damon has a winning rapport with Cottin and Slauvaud, who both give bright, winsome performances. How did we end up in this happy place when what we embarked upon was a fictionalized Amanda Knox movie?

That is one of the strange questions at the heart of Stillwater, a novelistic movie that eventually binds its disparate threads and tones into something surprisingly resonant. The sweet lying next to the sinister (and intertwined with it) is the contrast McCarthy is trying for, I think, to lull us into a cozy complacency before reminding us who these people represent, what havoc American intrusion can wreak even when—perhaps especially when—it is claiming good intentions.  

When violence reenters the picture, it’s a plot turn that is, on its face, ridiculous. Which may be the point, a soapy climax meant to echo real calamity, adventurism that is almost absurd in its recklessness. Once the sunniness of the middle section of the film is gone, Stillwater collapses into a bleak conclusion, McCarthy closing his film as bluntly and hauntingly as the Coen brothers ended No Country for Old Men . Stillwater certainly doesn’t compare to that masterpiece, but it still startles, teasing that this whole thing may have been a grand allegory all along.

Damon is a compelling presence throughout, clamming himself up into “yes ma’am” laconicism but still palpably suggesting the storm lurking under Bill’s frayed cap and baseball pitcher’s sunglasses. He never demands our sympathy nor courts our suspicion. It’s an unfussy performance, despite the goatee and Oklahoma twang and good-old-boy roughness. McCarthy is, as ever, good with his actors, helping them find the right measure of restraint and cinematic beam.

The film will be out in the States later this month, where I’d imagine it will be received varyingly. It’s not the dutiful, leering re-creation of a sensational case that some might hope for, and is full of pointy, sometimes discordant ideas and details that make it hard to categorize. It’s rather remarkable that a big Hollywood studio is releasing this difficult, curious film. I hope people give its heady mix of melodrama and political allusion a chance. Because Stillwater does—I have to say it—run deep.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Excellent, character-driven crime drama; violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Movie is mainly about making hard choices to help

Bill Baker faces danger and difficult odds to free

Main character is beat up by a gang -- punched, ki

Woman swims topless; her breasts are semi-visible

Very strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t,"

Instagram is part of the story.

Cigarette smoking. Main character lives a sober li

Parents need to know that Stillwater is a drama about an Oklahoma man named Bill Baker (Matt Damon) who travels to Marseille, France, to help his daughter (Abigail Breslin) get out of prison. A group of men beats Bill up, punching and kicking him, with bloody wounds shown. Bill shoulder-slams another…

Positive Messages

Movie is mainly about making hard choices to help one person at others' expense. The choice comes at a high price, and the price is paid, but the movie indicates that there was no other course of action for these characters; they would have made the same choices again.

Positive Role Models

Bill Baker faces danger and difficult odds to free his daughter from prison; he stops at nothing in pursuit of his goal, even sacrificing his own happiness and possibly his own freedom. At the same time, he offers a portrait of the most stubborn, bullheaded, and marginally rude qualities drawn from stereotypes about people from the United States. He's sometimes kind and helpful, but other times he makes poor choices and acts brashly. In a smaller role, Virginie is extremely helpful to a man she barely knows, offering to translate, drive him around, etc. Supporting characters make racist remarks.

Violence & Scariness

Main character is beat up by a gang -- punched, kicked. Bloody wounds shown. Main character shoulder-slams another character, punches him hard in the face, knocks him out. Character attempts suicide by hanging (off-screen); shown in hospital. Another reference to suicide. Reference to punching someone.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Woman swims topless; her breasts are semi-visible under the water and from the side. Kissing, foreplay. Woman in bra and underwear.

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Very strong language, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "dumbass," "damn," "hell," "scumbags." Racist dialogue includes "look at all these monkeys," "they all look alike," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Cigarette smoking. Main character lives a sober lifestyle; several references to his earlier alcohol dependency.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Stillwater is a drama about an Oklahoma man named Bill Baker ( Matt Damon ) who travels to Marseille, France, to help his daughter ( Abigail Breslin ) get out of prison. A group of men beats Bill up, punching and kicking him, with bloody wounds shown. Bill shoulder-slams another character and punches him hard in the face, knocking him out. A character attempts suicide, and suicide is discussed. A woman swims topless, with a breast semi-visible in an underwater shot. Characters kiss and undress each other; a woman is seen in her underwear. Language is quite strong, with frequent uses of "f--k," "s--t," and other words; supporting characters also make racist remarks. People smoke cigarettes, and Bill is said to be sober, having once had an alcohol dependency. Loosely inspired by the true story of Amanda Knox, this is a meticulous, detailed, slow-burn movie that goes much deeper than its plot synopsis suggests; it's dark, but quite thoughtful and powerful. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (3)
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Based on 3 parent reviews

A slow burn character driven film

What's the story.

In STILLWATER, Bill Baker ( Matt Damon ) is an oil worker in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He prepares for a trip, the latest of many, to Marseille, France, to visit his daughter, Allison ( Abigail Breslin ). Allison has been in prison for five years after being found guilty of murdering her roommate, but she has always maintained her innocence -- and now she has an idea who the real killer could have been. She asks Bill to deliver a letter to her lawyer, but the lawyer immediately shuts down the idea. In his hotel, Bill befriends a local woman, Virginie ( Camille Cottin ), and her 9-year-old daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud). Unable to afford a private investigator, Bill decides to stay and hunt for the killer himself, with Virginie's help. He starts staying at her place -- and to become a father figure for Maya. Time passes, and then the killer shows his face.

Is It Any Good?

Like director Tom McCarthy 's best movies, this slow-burn neo-noir unfolds as a detailed, nuanced character study, with no detail too small and plot twists layered expertly into the tapestry. A plot synopsis or a trailer can't do justice to the impressive way that Stillwater plays out, with McCarthy ( The Station Agent , Spotlight , etc.) making full use of the film's 140-minute running time to dig deep into human emotions and hard choices. One of the key scenes -- Bill spotting the killer at a crowded soccer match -- comes at a moment after the movie has lulled us into a sense of comfort. Consequently, the discovery comes as a jaw-dropping shock rather than a routine twist.

In the midst of the storytelling, Stillwater deals with outsiders' presence in places that are foreign to them and the way that they can be viewed through lenses of hate, suspicion, or mistrust. Bill is portrayed as a bullheaded, pushy American, with sunglasses parked over his grim face or perched on top of his dirty baseball cap. (Damon gives an impeccable, immersive performance.) He shoves his way into situations, demanding to know whether anyone speaks English, unafraid -- or unaware -- of being rude. His slow transformation into someone who cares about others feels genuine, even though it can't fix his ultimate character flaw, which is the reason the movie is really a noir. In the end, Stillwater brilliantly, brutally turns its lens back on the Americans.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Stillwater 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How does the movie handle the topic of suicide? When is it important to talk about mental health, especially if you're worried about a friend or family member? What resources are available to help both kids and adults ?

Does Bill make the right decision by kidnapping Akim? What does he gain from this choice? What does he lose? What were his other options?

Is smoking glamorized here? Are there consequences for smoking? Why does that matter?

How is Bill's alcohol dependency discussed? Is his sobriety shown in a positive light?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 30, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : August 20, 2021
• Cast : Matt Damon , Abigail Breslin , Camille Cottin
• Director : Tom McCarthy
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 140 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language
• Last updated : January 26, 2024

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Matt Damon Makes For an Excellent Unlovable American in Stillwater

Bill Baker, the Oklahoma oil-rig roughneck abroad played by an excellent Matt Damon in Stillwater , is not a Trump voter, but you can understand why one of the women he meets in Marseilles asks him about it outright. It’s not just that he looks like a guy who might have voted for Trump, from his frustrated outburst about “fake news” and insistence of saying grace over every meal down to the particular style of wraparound sunglasses he favors. He embodies a certain instinctive obstinance, a habit of holding on to what he knows and only what he knows, no matter how much the world might change around him. While the people Bill meets in France tend to react as though they’re anticipating an ugly American, the truth is that Bill isn’t the kind of guy who’d go there at all, given a choice. He’s in Marseilles to see his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), who’s in prison for killing her girlfriend, Lina, while there as an exchange student. It’s a crime she insists she’s innocent of, and, five years into her sentence, she’s come across a tenuous new lead she asks her father to pass along to her lawyer, though he ends up taking up the investigation himself.

Stillwater is the new movie from director Tom McCarthy, and it feels like one he’s spent his career preparing for — an enthralling, exasperating, and, above all else, ambitious affair that doesn’t soften or demand sympathy for its difficult main character but does insist on according him his full humanity. McCarthy is best known for 2015’s Spotlight , which won Best Picture, but most of his work as a director has been devoted to the idea of battling back first impressions to get at the complexity of individuals. Each of his early indies — The Station Agent , The Visitor , and Win Win — use a premise of almost-perverse hokiness as the basis for a subdued character study of enormous generosity. Stillwater is a sprawling realization of that same approach, teasing a tawdry international crime thriller and then offering, instead, a portrait of a man trying to make up for past regrets with one big swing and constantly frustrated by his inability to meet the standards he’s set for himself. Bill spends a good part of Stillwater looking for redemption, but the film is more interested in the idea of learning to live with your mistakes.

Bill’s relationship with Allison has been shaped by those mistakes, and we come to understand that she counts on him as her point of contact with the outside world without really trusting him. McCarthy started off as an actor, and he has a way of writing for great performances that seems counterintuitive at first because his movies are so averse to grandstanding or big monologues. But he approaches his characters like they’re iceberg tips, the bulk of their lives a submerged but solid presence that can be sensed, even if it’s mostly unseen. Details about Allison’s childhood and Bill’s drug- and drink-fueled absenteeism emerge slowly from both of them, and it’s clear that while Bill’s been showing up for her regularly, Allison wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped at any moment. He still thinks of a relationship as something that can be fixed rather than something that’s nurtured and maintained, and his eagerness to clear his daughter’s name (while lying to her about her attorney’s inaction) speaks to preference for the cleanness of action. For a while, his determination is effective, and Damon is particularly deft at showing how Bill’s doggedness works without giving the character’s efforts any fish-out-of-water cutesiness.

His blunt-force approach carries him forward until it doesn’t, and when Bill’s amateur detective work stalls out, the film takes a startling turn toward the domestic by way of Virginie ( Call My Agent! ’s Camille Cottin), a Parisian transplant who starts giving Bill translation help, and her ebullient daughter, Maya (the wonderful Lilou Siauvaud). Virginie is part of the local theater scene and has a touch of kamikaze do-gooderism that leads her to open her home to a relative stranger. Her Gallic bohemianism neither overlaps with nor lines up in opposition to Bill’s blue-collar stolidity. It’s her friend who asks if Bill voted for Trump and who’s briefly stymied by his response that he didn’t vote at all because his criminal record forbids it. If it’s never clear how much of a willing enlistee Bill is in his country’s ongoing culture war, the film is also aware of the fact that those schisms don’t export neatly. Bill, still scarred from the way Allison’s crime inflamed press attention because her lover was Arab and female, has no idea what to make of the way that a professor at her school casts her as a privileged American dating a poor girl from the inner city. But Allison didn’t grow up with money, Bill protests, and the man avers that she was nevertheless the one with power in the relationship and that “there is a lot of resentment toward the educational elite.”

Allison wanted to get far away from her father and from everything she knew, but one of the themes of the movie is that she’s more like Bill than she wants to admit. Stillwater can’t get away from its own origins either in the end, and after a delicate and lovely middle section in which the film liberates itself from any obligations to address the murder as something other than an intractable fact, it surrenders to obligations toward plot again. It’s a development that feels as inevitable as a visa expiring, with everyone having to take up the narrative that’s the ostensible reason the film exists, even if it feels artificial compared to what’s come before. At the start of Stillwater , Bill rides home from a post-storm cleanup job back in Oklahoma, and as two of his colleagues talk in subtitled Spanish, the audience is invited into a conversation Bill doesn’t understand. One man marvels at the fact that the destroyed houses are likely to be rebuilt just as they were. “I don’t think Americans like change,” the other observes, to which the first replies, “I don’t think a tornado cares what Americans think.” It’s a discussion that feels like it could apply to the movie they’re a part of, one that lays waste to expectations but ultimately can’t help but go back to the way things always are.

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The Ending Of Stillwater Explained

True crime stories make for some of the most popular documentaries, with salacious murders and other crimes becoming the biggest hits, particularly on streamers like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. But every once in a while, Hollywood takes a story ripped from the headlines and uses it as the basis of a dramatic thriller. The perfect example is 2021's "Stillwater," starring Matt Damon , which is loosely inspired by the murder of Meredith Kercher at the hands of a burglar, a crime that was initially pinned on American exchange student Amanda Knox.

"Stillwater" puts Damon into the role of struggling roughneck Bill Baker, whose daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), was convicted of murdering her former lover Lina while studying abroad. With five years left on his daughter's sentence, Bill visits her. When he learns of new evidence that might shed new light on the case, he finds himself a man on a mission to exonerate his daughter and bring her home.

Traveling from rural Oklahoma to Marseille, France, Bill becomes a fish out of water in a land he doesn't understand and is forced to rely on the generosity of a kind stranger (Camille Cottin) to see his mission through. A deliberately paced character study, "Stillwater" has a dramatic third act that turns the story completely on its head. And given the rapid-fire way things break in the climax, those who've seen "Stillwater" might still be scratching their heads at the film's shocking final moments. Here's the ending of "Stillwater" explained.

What you need to remember about the plot of Stillwater

Though heavily inspired by the murder of Meredith Kercher and the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox, "Stillwater" begins in Stillwater, Oklahoma, rather than Knox's native Seattle. There we meet Bill, an unemployed oil rig worker whose daughter has already served five years of a nine-year sentence for the murder of her former roommate and lover Lina while living in France. Allison has steadfastly maintained her innocence, but she has learned not to count on Bill, who wasn't the best father growing up and can rarely be trusted with responsibility.

But after a visit to see his daughter in prison, Bill becomes determined to prove Allison's innocence when she claims to have learned the identity of a young man who may be the real killer: an Arab immigrant named Akim (Idir Azougli). After her lawyer and the police decline to investigate this new lead, Bill takes up the task himself. And he finds an ally in Virginie, a local Frenchwoman who lives with her young daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), in Marseille. Eventually, Bill and Virginie move in together and later forge a romantic bond, while Bill slowly becomes a father figure to Maya.

When one of Virginie's friends tracks down Akim, Bill's mission to clear Allison's name becomes more dangerous. And when Bill fails to get the evidence he needs after a violent altercation with the young man, Allison cuts off all contact with him.

What happened at the end of Stillwater

On the outs with his daughter after she learns that he tried and failed to clear her name by himself, Bill decides to stay in Marseille to be close to her despite their estrangement. He even begins to build a life with Virginie and Maya, helping out as a caretaker and getting a job with a local construction company. But when Bill has a chance encounter with Akim while attending a football match, he can't allow the person he believes to be the real killer to get away a second time, and he kidnaps Akim and holds him hostage.

Bill keeps Akim hidden in the basement of his apartment complex and swears little Maya to secrecy when she sees him. He then sends off a DNA sample to a lab, hoping it will match unidentified forensic evidence found at the original crime scene. A tip to the police, however, leads officers to Bill's basement. On the verge of his whole scheme unraveling, Bill is as shocked as the police to discover that Akim isn't there, with Maya lying to cover for him, too.

Nevertheless, the DNA sample he gave to Allison's lawyer (Anne Le Ny) is enough to cast doubt on Allison's guilt and get her freed from prison. It's a bittersweet end to Bill's quest, though, because Virginie — enraged at what Bill did to Akim and furious for involving Maya — ends their relationship, tearing him away from his new surrogate family.

Allison's bombshell admission

Throughout "Stillwater," Bill is unwavering in his support for his daughter and steadfast in his belief in her innocence. Certain that his daughter was framed for a heinous crime she didn't commit, he hopes to do right by his daughter not just to see her freed, but as a way of redeeming himself as a father in her eyes. Bill believes he knows his daughter better than anyone, and he is sure that she had nothing to do with Lina's murder. And that belief comes crashing down in the film's climax.

When Akim was held captive, the young man insisted that Allison was indeed involved in Lina's murder. He told Bill that Allison hired him to kill Lina, even paying him in part with a gold necklace that her father bought for her as a gift. Not sure what to believe, Bill still manages to get Allison home, but once back in Oklahoma — after being given a hero's welcome by the community and local officials — Bill confronts his daughter to learn what role she really played in Lina's death.

Unable to hold in her biggest secret, Allison tells her father what happened the night of the murder. Having caught her lover cheating, Allison says, she broke up with Lina and wanted her out of the house and hired Akim to "get rid of her." And while she says she never intended for any harm to come to Lina, Allison's instructions were misconstrued, leading to her ex-girlfriend's death.

What the ending of Stillwater means

At its core, "Stillwater" is an examination of trauma, grief, and letting go. It's about how Allison — a young woman with a good heart — made a fatal mistake and was forced to pay a steep price. And about how she must come to terms with her role in the death of her ex-girlfriend, while never even having a chance to say goodbye or mourn her loss. At the end of "Stillwater," we see Allison even getting a crude prison tattoo of Lina's name before she gets out — a symbol of her love, proving that she never wanted to hurt her.

But we also see that by the end of the film, Bill is a changed man, and not just because of the ordeal he went through to free his daughter. Earlier in the film, we'd learned that Bill once had struggles with drugs and alcohol, assumed to be the tragic way that he dealt with the death of his wife, Allison's mother. But this time, dealing with his daughter's incarceration and fight for justice, Bill has learned how to better deal with his problems by channeling his energy into something good — both his pursuit of justice and a new family. And in doing so, both Bill and his daughter learn the value of forgiving themselves. Similarly, Allison has finally found a way to overcome her resentment towards her father, while Bill comes to see past Allison's mistakes and sympathize with the reasons she left in the first place.

Why did Bill's view of Oklahoma change?

After Bill and Allison share a tearful moment, with Allison confessing her part in Lina's murder, the two share a solemn moment on their front porch. It's the first new morning that Allison's spent at home in years, and she remarks that nothing has changed. Her old hometown is exactly as she remembers it. But Bill doesn't agree ... in his final line, the world-weary laborer says that nothing looks the same at all. But what does he mean by that?

Bill's entire worldview has been challenged and changed by his fight to free his daughter. He came to know Allison in a way he'd never known her before, realizing that they are very different people. And through Virginie and Maya, Bill has learned to be a better man, husband, and father. 

Another theme that's touched on, somewhat beneath the surface, is a message on bigotry and intolerance. Most French locals look down on Bill, who, being from the rural towns of the American South, is assumed to be a backward, gun-owning racist. He admits that he has many friends back home who harbor racist attitudes, and though he never expresses his own feelings on the matter, an encounter with a Frenchman with an open disdain for immigrants makes the message clear. Having been exposed to another culture and having fallen for the more socially conscious Virginie, Bill returns with a different perspective on the world.

Did Bill get the redemption he was looking for?

The driving force of "Stillwater" may be Bill's quest to prove Allison's innocence, but Bill is still the heart of the story — a father looking for one more chance to do right by his daughter. We learn throughout the film that Bill wasn't a very good parent. He had abused drugs and alcohol and spent time in prison himself, and he was rarely there for his daughter when she was growing up. She doesn't have a strong relationship with him, particularly after the death of her mother, and even when new evidence emerges in her case, she doesn't trust him to help.

Bill makes an early mistake, though — lying to Allison that their lawyer agreed to reopen the case when in reality he was handling it himself — and it drives his daughter away. But when he proves to Allison that he is there for her, staying in France to be close to her, she begins to realize that he may indeed be turning over a new leaf. And while she remains skeptical that he won't let her down again, Bill overcomes incredible odds to get Allison freed, and the two form a father-daughter bond that they'd never had before as Bill finally redeems himself in his daughter's eyes.

How did the ending of Stillwater compare to the story that inspired it?

"Stillwater" was heavily inspired by the story of Amanda Knox, a fact not lost on critics and audiences. But while the movie and the true story share many similarities, there are several striking differences, most notably at the film's conclusion. Allison Baker, like Amanda Knox, is an American college student who was studying abroad when her roommate was murdered. Like Knox, Baker is the prime suspect in the killing and is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Like Knox, Allison is eventually released and cleared of all charges when new evidence emerges.

In "Stillwater," however, it's ultimately discovered that Allison was at least partly responsible for her roommate's murder. That stands in stark contrast to what happened to Amanda Knox. Originally convicted of murder (among other charges) in 2011, Knox was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison alongside her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, with jurors believing that Sollecito had held the victim down while Knox committed the actual murder (as reported by BBC News at the time).

Years later, though, new evidence came out that cleared Knox of the killing. After a complicated series of trials and appeals, Knox was finally declared innocent in 2015, with burglar Rudy Guede found to have committed the crime. Unlike Allison, there was never any implication after her final acquittal that Knox had played any role whatsoever in the murder.

What Camille Cottin says about the ending of Stillwater

At times in "Stillwater," the story is almost as much about Virginie and Maya's relationship with Bill as it is about Bill's fight for justice. When Bill moves in with Virginie, it's a purely platonic arrangement, but by the end of the film, they've fallen in love, making it a heartbreaking moment when she is forced to end their relationship. But it's this part of the story that Camille Cottin — who plays Virginie — says gives meaning that some audiences may have missed.

"I don't know if [the writers] realized how feminist it was," the actress told The List . "But it's a man who's wandered and lost, and really it's the women around him who help him open his mind and find the light." And there's certainly merit to this interpretation, as Bill has lost both of the most important women in his life: his wife and his daughter. Losing them — one to suicide, one to injustice — may be the very reason that Bill finds himself so directionless, and it's the connections he builds with Virginie and Maya that show him there is still hope left in this world and ultimately help him free his daughter.

Putting aside the more tangible help that Virginie provides — serving early on as a translator and giving Bill a place to live — it's her emotional support and steady presence that helps ground him. And through his blossoming father-daughter relationship with Maya, he's able to make up for not being there for Allison when she was young.

What director Tom McCarthy says about the ending of Stillwater

The relationship between the Amanda Knox story and "Stillwater" was evident to audiences, and director Tom McCarthy made no secret that it was that infamous case that inspired his movie. But when it diverges from the true story, it is neither overtly intentional nor accidental, according to McCarthy.

"We decided, 'Hey, let's leave the Amanda Knox case behind,'" McCarthy told Vanity Fair in 2021. "But let me take this piece of the story — an American woman studying abroad involved in some kind of sensational crime and she ends up in jail — and fictionalize everything around it." That meant centering the story on Allison's father, Bill, who is almost totally fabricated for the film: While Amanda Knox's father had been an outspoken advocate of his daughter, he had very little in common with he blue-collar Bill, nor did he ever initiate any kind of investigation of his own.

Tonally, McCarthy said that the film was aiming to feel more like a true-crime podcast than a dramatization of a true story. And for that reason, the story split wildly from Knox's mostly at its conclusion when Allison admits to being unwittingly involved in the murder. But McCarthy suggested that this plot twist simply flowed out of the movie's story, and wasn't intended to mirror the Knox trial, instead serving as a thematic capper to the story they were telling, rather than real life. "Allison's innocence or guilt is crucial to the story, thematically," McCarthy said.

What Amanda Knox says about the ending of Stillwater

Since the movie was released, much has been made about the similarities between Allison Baker's story and that of Amanda Knox . Released from prison several years before the movie even entered production, Knox herself commented on the film in 2021 and said she wasn't much of a fan, criticizing many aspects of the film. She took issue with the invented romance between Allison and the murdered girl, Lina, but more obviously egregious is the dramatic final twist that implicated the character that was clearly based on herself.

"How do you think that [ending] impacts my reputation?" Knox asked in a 2021 op-ed for The Medium . "I continue to be accused of 'knowing something I'm not revealing,' of 'having been involved somehow, even if I didn't plunge the knife.' So Tom McCarthy's fictionalized version of me is just the tabloid conspiracy guilter version of me." By making the Allison character complicit, Knox said, the film might cause audiences to second guess Knox's own innocence, when the real issue that she said should have been examined was the rampant police corruption and mishandling of her case.

"By fictionalizing away my innocence, my total lack of involvement, by erasing the role of the authorities in my wrongful conviction, McCarthy reinforces an image of me as a guilty and untrustworthy person," she wrote. Knox criticized the filmmakers for not even talking to her before making a film inspired by her story, even using McCarthy's Vanity Fair interview as damning evidence of their callousness.

Unanswered questions from the ending of Stillwater

One can disagree with Amanda Knox's criticisms of "Stillwater" and its ending if they wish, but one thing she is certainly right about is how the film glosses over the police's mishandling of the initial murder investigation and the miscarriage of French justice in the courtroom that saw an innocent young woman convicted of a murder she didn't commit. As the police officers say themselves, the murder weapon was never found, and the only evidence against Allison is circumstantial. The presence of unidentified DNA on the victim, meanwhile, should have raised obvious red flags and could have been enough on its own to cast doubt on the prosecution's case.

Beyond the original case, though, the film still leaves us with several unanswered questions. With the knowledge that another man — whose DNA police now have — was involved in the death of Lina, will authorities start a new hunt for Akim? And if so, will he be able to evade authorities? If he is apprehended, he would surely tell police of Allison's involvement, which could even draw her back to Marseille to face new charges.

Finally, the question many viewers may be pondering after seeing the film is how Akim escaped Bill's basement before the authorities were able to discover him. It's never said directly, but it's implied that it was Viriginie, who must have discovered him below the apartment complex. And while she ends her relationship with Bill over the abduction, it's strongly suggested that she let Akim go to save Bill from being caught, proving her love for him.

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Matt’s Basement

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“ There's also board games to play, tvs and big pillows to crash on. ” in 2 reviews

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413 Nelson St E

Stillwater, MN 55082

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We are a Boba Tea House featuring Bubble Waffles and Nostalgic Gaming in a 2,400 sqft lounge setting. Customers can rent retro game consoles to play on one of our TVs including: Atari, NES, Nintendo64, Game Cube, and Play Station. Monday - Wednesday at 6:30pm we host Movie Nights on our 120" projector and give away 2 free tickets every week on our Instagram page. …

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Food: Great! The Strawberry Mild Tea is really good but if you are used to regular strawberry milk tea then be aware that its far more mellow Service: Great! Staff were really friendly. Ambiance: A great place with really cool decor! They also host a bunch of events like DnD and Movie Nights!

Super casual place with so much seating and a huge selection on the menu! We saw a sign pointing towards Matt's basement that advertised coffee and hot chocolate. We were walking around Stillwater at 6pm so a lot of the other coffee shops were already closed. It was pretty quiet and we ordered quickly. They mentioned opening a couple months ago and plan to host several events that they post about on their instagram. I got a hot chocolate and we all shared their chili. Both were great! We stayed for a bit and played uno, but they have several other games you can use during your time there. The seating was so comfy and really felt like a "basement" hangout spot. I'm glad we ran into Matt's Basement and hope to come back soon!

See all photos from Anushka M. for Matt’s Basement

Matt's Basement is a nice addition to Stillwater! I'm so happy that there's boba tea in the area now. The drinks are delicious and the addition of real fruit in the drinks make them special. The shop is cute with plenty to places to hang out and chill. There are ample spots to get cozy and stay a while. Ample seating on the patio as well. Service is amazing, answered all of my questions. I will definitely revisit when I am in the area.

Wow! Stumbled across Matt's basement tonight. We were looking for some dessert and this is a must stop. We tried the strawberry and chocolate chip waffles and they are fantastic. The kids got bubble tea as well which was delicious. You won't be disappointed if you swing into Matt's basement.

Came for dessert and was blown away how delicious the boba tea and waffles are. Thanks guys great customer service also.

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Business Owner

Jan 23, 2024

Thank you!! I'm so happy you found us, we loved having you and your family! We really appreciate your kind words and amazing photos. We hope to see you back in!

What an incredible addition to downtown Stillwater! I stopped in for dessert after my birthday dinner and I was not disappointed. The owner, Matt, is so nice and helpful, and the chef, Ruby, is exceptional. We got three waffles - two Strawberries and Cream and one Traditional Boba Waffle - and two Strawberry Fields bobas. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it all was. The boba waffle was primarily mine, and the boba was fresh and flavorful, the waffle somehow crisp and pillowy, and the whipped cream and drizzle the perfect topping for it all. I also snuck a bite of the strawberry waffle, and wow, what a flavor explosion! The strawberry syrup was so delicious, and it had a drizzle of what looked like sweetened condensed milk. My mouth is watering just writing about it. The boba tea was so dang good. I honestly think this is the best boba I've had, and I've been to a lot of places. The seating is plentiful and varied. The beanbags are so soft! And, though we didn't have time to try it, the gaming is such a nice touch. I can't wait to come back to try my hand at N64 Duck Hunt. Prices are great. Atmosphere is great. Location is great. This is such a gem. Thanks to Matt for opening what is my new favorite place!

Traditional Boba Waffle

This place was very cool! The waffle was delicious I totally recommend it's super cozy inside

Strawberry waffle

I got a cup of chai and I liked it!! They have games and host a movie night, which sounds so much fun. They have bean bags to sit on and you can play video games if you wish. They have traditional coffee seating and outdoor seating, so pick your fancy.

Love this social place: pac man, piano, comfortable sofa, meeting room , and more. Plus boba tea!

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The vibe here is pretty cool. I had the Tiger Ube with boba pearls and the flavor was super flavorful and tasty. Very vibrant colors! Service was great! Very helpful with questions that I had, also very personable. Definitely a must stop when in Stillwater, MN.

Every time I visit, there seems to be a new item on the menu OR a great suggestion on what to order. I don't live in the area, but it's funny how I'm now making EXTRA reasons to drive all the way out to Stillwater. *TRY THE CHERRY COKE FLOAT!!*

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I don’t need a note-perfect portrayal of Amy Winehouse. The quality of acting is the key

Musical biopics should convincingly depict their stars’ lives – if you just want to hear the hits, put on an album

T he reviews are in for the trailer for the imminent Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black . Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, it stars Marisa Abela as Winehouse, who died in 2011. Vitriol has been heaped on Abela’s vocals in a clip depicting Winehouse singing Stronger Than Me from her debut album, Frank . People (who’ve yet to see the film) are mad that Abela (who broke through in the television city finance drama, Industry ) can’t sing as well, croon as sinuously, as Winehouse.

So, Abela isn’t Amy’s exact vocal-doppelganger – the only reasonable reaction can be, so what? If the Winehouse magic were that easy to reproduce, you’d wonder what made her so special. That aside, it’s weird to see people bashing a film based on singing in a trailer . What does that say about the music biopic genre? What does it say about us?

I’ll pause here to note the unlovely whiff of sexism to the attacks on Abela, while others get off scot-free. I had to abandon the much-lauded 2022 Elvis Presley biopic, Elvis (I couldn’t shake the feeling that Austin Butler had absconded from one of those Presley-themed, Las Vegas quickie-wedding chapels). Likewise, photos from the forthcoming Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown , have emerged showing Timothée Chalamet resembling a confused child who’d fallen headfirst into a 1960s dressing-up box. Where’s the heat for them? But I digress. This isn’t about individual performances, it’s a far bigger problem than that.

The music biopic is a vast, ever-expanding genre (including Taylor-Johnson’s 2009 Beatles drama, Nowhere Boy ), and there’s not enough space to go into them all here. Suffice to say some have been good: Coal Miner’s Daughter (Loretta Lynn); Control (Ian Curtis); Ray (Ray Charles) and more. Some have been deliciously bad. One recalls The Doors , in which Oliver Stone cast Meg Ryan as a rock chick. And Bohemian Rhapsody , featuring an industrially sanitised, barely gay Freddie Mercury.

Others (such as the David Bowie homage, Stardust , and the disappointing cartoon-punk-esque Sid and Nancy ) clearly weren’t allowed (or couldn’t afford) to use the songs of the artists, even on the soundtrack. What all decent biopics have in common, even when good singing is involved ( Walk the Line , about Johnny Cash and June Carter), is that deep-dive characterisation and story comes before the tunes. Always.

Here’s the thing: music biopics aren’t impersonations. They’re not Stars in Their Eye s . They aren’t big-screen karaoke. They’re not a cinematic vending machine for songs. Indeed, the fact that, increasingly, the film industry (and the audience) expects them to be all of these things goes some way to explaining how tiresome, hackneyed, cheesy, tacky and borderline unwatchable the genre has become.

Too often, I’ve plonked myself in front of a biopic that ends up feeling akin to one of the oft-maligned (but at least honest) West End “jukebox musicals”, just with a bit more Wikipedia-level backstory crowbarred in. Or one of those creepy-sounding hologram shows, at which people are supposed to tragically boogie to images of artists produced by lasers/electronic gubbins (incidentally, plans for an Amy Winehouse hologram show were shelved after a fan backlash ).

With too many biopics, the objective seems purely to showcase the back catalogue, produce a nostalgic, feelgood singalong, and shift a few units in the lucrative heritage market. Kerching! Which is how we arrive here, with a film being trashed because Abela is not deemed to sound sufficiently like Winehouse during a trailer lasting 98 seconds. Seriously?

Admittedly, earnest musical mimicry isn’t my jam (baby!). While some may have cried “cop out!”, I wouldn’t have cared (that much) if Abela had been dubbed (as was planned). Or if the songs had stayed firmly on the soundtrack. With Back to Black , it’s also hard to tell whether the reaction is partly due to people pushing back against the Amy industry.

Still, it’s odd how only music biopics seem so exactingly appraised. Films about painters aren’t decried because canvases aren’t correctly daubed. Likewise, sports (in Nyad , about marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, I don’t recall Annette Bening being judged on her front crawl). Only with musicians is it a “thing” – when it’s a fallacy that singers are easy to imitate. Distinctive vocals such as those belonging to Winehouse don’t happen minute by minute, or even moment by moment. They happen molecule by molecule. It’s nigh-on impossible to authentically mimic them.

Some might say: if you can’t do it, don’t take the job. However, it’s not the job, or it shouldn’t be. A biopic’s true mission is to give you the essence of the human being, the story beyond the talent. Unlike a fictional group (such as Stillwater in Almost Famous ), where arguably it helps to see them in action, the subject’s legacy is self-evidently secure; their gifts taken as read.

Thus, the music biopic is far more of an acting job than a singing job. It does not require sending people out in vocal-drag to perform the hits for what’s fast becoming a cheese-stuffed, cash-in zombie film genre. I’ll judge Back to Black on how well it delivers “Amy Winehouse”, not on how fast it plugs in the karaoke box.

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Sooners Take Wild Second Bedlam Game in Stillwater

Saturday’s decisive game two of Bedlam featured an array of crazy. Ridiculous offense, a record crowd, and a weather delay in a match up slated to be a pitchers duel.

Holden Krusemark recaps the wild affair in the video above which lasted nearly seven hours.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City.

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