moviereview - Tenderness

TENDERNESS

	When a juvenile killer is released from jail, the cop who put him there stays on his heels, convinced he'll kill again. Events take a turn when he meets a tenacious young girl.	score 2+	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
			FIND A MOVIEREVIEW

Cast
Russell Crowe, Jon Foster, Sophie Trabu, Laura Dern

Director
John Polson

Screenwriter
Emil Stern

Country
USA

Rating / Running Time
M / 101 minutes

Australian Release
April 2009

Official Site

Tropfest founder, actor, writer and director John Polson has enjoyed a lukewarm career since heading to Hollywood almost a decade ago. Films like Swimfan and the Robert de Niro starrer Hide and Seek have met with middling critical acclaim and failed to set audiences alight. His fondness for top-shelf stars and melancholic character stories has kept him caught in the muddy water between blockbusting glory and art-house rewards. Sadly, Tenderness is unlikely to change any of that.

With Russell Crowe taking above-the-line honours as a dogged cop on a mission, Tenderness begins with a creakily familiar set up. Convinced that Robert, a parent-murdering teenager freshly released from juvenile detention, is a psychopath in waiting, he trails the youth to prevent him from killing again. But his plan is complicated when Robert unwillingly befriends a suicidal girl obsessed with the boy’s past.

Emil Stern’s debut screenplay adapts Robert Cormier’s pessimistic novel with limited success. Despite a fascinating bedrock of complex emotion – from Robert’s internal conflict to that of the girl with a death-wish – the filmmakers fail to grasp all that’s ready to explore, and exploit: betrayal, revenge, violence and mental illness foremost among them. Talk about Stranger-Danger. Did I mention that Polson has a fondness for melancholic character study?

There’s a touch of Somersault in the appealingly downbeat story of lost youth that’s glossed up with eye-catching detail. Production is warm and attractive, performances, especially Sophie Traub, are compelling. Yet the touchpaper of motivation that would set the film alight is missing. It’s hard to understand what keeps these characters moving, and without true indie grit or runaway tension that would otherwise satisfy the multiplex, Tenderness drops somewhere in-between. And that is mostly a disappointing nowhere.

// COLIN FRASER