[7]

Nicolas Cage stars in his most interesting movie in many years. He plays an ex-con in an impoverished Southern community who becomes an unlikely role model for a 15-year old boy (Mud‘s Tye Sheridan) who is dealing with an increasingly abusive, alcoholic father (Gary Poulter). Cage and Sheridan are top-notch, and Garry Hawkins’ screenplay, based on Larry Brown’s novel, never stoops to sentimentality. Director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, All the Real Girls) captures the geographically and emotionally desolate South beautifully with his casting and location choices. The film is similar to Mud in many superficial ways, and both films stem from the legacy of Shane. But Joe is really more of a thematic exploration on toxic masculinity, as portrayed by Sheridan’s, Cage’s, and Poulter’s characters — each roughly 25 years apart in age, and each grappling with the gender straight jacket in one way or another. It’s a suitably dreary film with a hopeful outlook and characters not beyond redemption. It’s also a look into a seemingly authentic subculture and a showpiece for its two leading actors.