Down in the Valley is a strangely ethereal, contemporary western (deconstructed yes, but not overtly so) which centers on a tender/tragic love affair between Harlan (Edward Norton), a drifter pushing thirty, and a seventeen-year-old girl, October (Evan Rachel Wood), who picks him up one afternoon and takes him to the ocean. They fall in love. Dad (David Morse) gets in the way. Tobe’s diffident younger brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) believes Harlan to be a kindred spirit; he’s the avuncular ideal Lonnie’s father can never be. Conflicts arise. Harlan’s desire to forge a new family unit by pushing dad aside sets into a motion a series of events where things go uncomfortably awry. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a great film. Continue reading Two Films