Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Tyler Riggs
Starring: Brit Shaw, Michael Abbott Jr., Dendrie Taylor, William Samiri
There's a curious familiarity to writer/director Tyler Riggs'
sophomore feature Peace in the Valley. Its two leads – Brit Shaw and Michael Abbott Jr. – are
practically doubles of Riley Keough and Walton Goggins. Thematically it
feels akin to a Kenneth Lonergan drama. Visually it often resembles
Altman and Rudolph, with lots of subtle zooms picking out characters
lost in crowds. But mostly it feels familiar because we feel like we
know the people who populate its story. What its plot lacks in
originality, Peace in the Valley makes up for with
characters so well drawn they feel like friends and neighbours, and we
care for even those who don’t care too much for themselves.
A striking opening scene sees the happy family of Ashley (Shaw), John
(Abbott Jr.) and their 10-year-old son Jessie (William Samiri)
visit one of those massive convenience stores that sit on the edge of
every American town. John has just won a work promotion and plans to
celebrate by purchasing a chainsaw. Ashley hopes he'll put it to use by
cutting down the overgrown tree that's taken over their garden. When
gunshots ring out, John ushers Ashley to safety before rescuing his son.
We then cut to John's funeral and learn he died a hero, saving the lives
of his fellow shoppers. The tree remains uncut.
The arrival of John's deadbeat identical twin brother Billy (Abbott Jr.
in a dual role that never comes off as tacky) suggests we're in for a
classic story of redemption. Billy bonds with Jessie and it seems he may
help Ashley heal, but his presence proves increasingly disruptive. He
takes the boy hunting and tells stories of the BB gun he cherished as a
child. Ashley never says so much, but we can tell she's uncomfortable at
the role guns play in Billy's life, and now her son's. There are no
lectures on gun control from Riggs however. His film is set in a part of
the world where guns are ingrained in culture, and people just don’t
have those conversations. A dinner table scene in which Jessie and his
grandmother (Dendrie Taylor) listen intently as Billy describes
his childhood gun while Ashley squirms in her seat reminded me of Bobbie
Gentry's great country song 'Ode to Billy Joe', which tells of the
indifference Americans so often display to tragedy, even when it's on
their own doorstep.
While Billy plays a large role in the narrative,
Peace in the Valley is ultimately Ashley's story. We watch
as she copes with her loss in a very human, very messy way. She seeks
drunken sex with both strangers in bars and even Billy, leading to an
uncomfortable but all too real sexual encounter that will have later
ramifications. There's a brutal but relatable honesty to how Ashley
speaks about life without her husband, citing her inability to open
pickle jars as one of the things she struggles with in his absence. Shaw
is magnificent in the role, playing Ashley as someone who wants to keep
her head down and grieve in solitude, but can't because she has a boy to
raise and a support network of people trying their best to help her
heal. She may have lost her husband in dramatic circumstances, but the
fact that Riggs plays this drama in a manner that never explicitly
broaches the subject of America's mass shooting culture is a damning
indictment of how normal and accepted such tragedies have become for
that nation's citizens.
