Mississippi Grind

I only heard of Mississippi Grind when it was on the National Board of Review's list of the best independent films of the year. I popped it into my Netflix queue and then discovered, while watching it, that it was written and directed by Anne Boden and Ryan Fleck, who also made Half Nelson and Sugar. It's weird and sad that their films have progressively become more obscure. Half Nelson got an Oscar nomination, Sugar was very well received (although I had my reservations), and It's Kind of a Funny Story made almost no impression. Mississippi Grind hardly had a theatrical release at all. That's too bad, because it's their best film.

Mississippi Grind incorporates a lot of familiar film tropes. It's a buddy movie, a road movie, and it's about gambling, all of them perhaps overdone (and owing a great deal to Robert Altman's California Split). But I found the movie fresh and alive, mostly because the locations aren't routine--it's not Vegas, it's the casinos up and down the Mississippi River, from Dubuque, Iowa to New Orleans. The second reason is the magnificent performance by Ben Mendelsohn.

He plays Gerry, a degenerate gambler and all-around loser. He struggles to hold on to a real estate agent job, owes almost everyone, and gambled his way out of a marriage. One night at a poker game he meets Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), a charismatic fellow who is drawn to Gerry, one imagines, like a person is to a starving dog. They hang out and have a couple of fun nights, and Gerry, desperate for money, asks Curtis to get him into a big game in New Orleans. He'll provide the car, Curtis will provide the stakes.

They then drive along the Mississippi (hopefully on Highway 61) hitting St. Louis, Memphis, and other spots in between. There are some great location shots of dive bars and pool halls, and I got a real feel for places I would never set foot in. In St. Louis Reynolds visits his prostitute girlfriend (Sienna Miller), which is a bit of cliche--why do guys like this in movies always have girlfriends who are hookers or strippers or both? Mendelsohn stops off in Little Rock to see his ex-wife, but really only wants to steal money from her. "I'm not a good person," he says.

But Mendelsohn's performance is so wrenching that you feel sympathy for him, or even empathy, if you have any sort of addiction. I don't gamble, but I understand the urge, and can see where the allure comes from. The look on Mendelsohn's face when he loses it all on a horse (picked because of the name, always a bad idea) is heart breaking.

This film reminded me a lot, in both subject and tone, to The Cooler, which had William H. Macy as one of life's great losers. They would make a great double feature at a Gambler's Anonymous meeting.