The embryonic stages of J.C. Chandor’s career have given us a director methodical in his approach to weaving tales of fallible men, drowning as the world about them collapses. In Margin Call it was the financial kind, whereas it was the literal sort as Robert Redford battled the elements in All Is Lost. A Most Violent Year continues this trend, as Oscar Issac’s businessman struggles to prevent his company and family being caught up in a climate of crime, set against the backdrop of an increasingly corrupt New York City.
Ambitious immigrant Abel Morales (Issac) runs Standard Heating Oil, a fuel distribution company with lorries scattered across the boroughs delivering fuel. His wife and bookkeeper, Anna (Jessica Chastain) is the daughter of a very powerful man, and his confidante (Albert Brooks) appears to skirt the periphery of the criminal underworld. Their increasingly affluent lifestyle is threatened when their trucks start to be hijacked, which leads to mounting debts and fingers of suspicion pointed in the direction of their more nefarious partners.
With something of an unusual and refreshing storytelling approach, A Most Violent Year drops you straight into the lives of its characters, with no back-story spoon feeding, on-the-nose exposition, or audience pandering. Reputations have been forged, crimes have already been committed, and a series of events have already been set in motion.
Understandably, this obtuse approach might alienate those expecting a gangster genre flick. Well that’s their loss. You’re going to be watching a studied, subtle slice of a grander story, one of many taking place over this narratively labyrinthine city in this year of violent crime. Don’t expect Goodfellas style grandstanding, Chandor’s film is a quiet exercise in sparingly depicting what you need to know, and it’s a technique that ensures you’re gripped without ever really realising it.
The mood of the film is a cold, alienating one, a lifeless palette of concrete vistas and bleached landscapes, perfectly complementing the movie’s intention of presenting this annus horribilis as one absent of anything other than the stark reality of a crime ridden New York.
Exacerbating the harshness, and subverting the idea that this is a man’s world, is a superb performance from Jessica Chastain, stepping out from behind Oscar Issac with an against type role of marital dominance and moments of Chastain chastising that shake the film from its genteel pacing. There is a roadkill sequence during which she steps to the forefront and delivers on the threat that “you’re not going to like what will happen when I get involved” by dealing with her husband’s inadequacies. She is played brilliantly, like a sultry cobra, lulling the audience into a false sense of security, kidding you she’s a gangster’s moll or mother cliché, and then striking out.
There are moments when the gears turn a little faster like a wonderful rat-a-tat-tat car chase sequence, and an effective low key rail yard foot pursuit, both of which recall the likes of The French Connection in style and execution.
It might be something of an acquired taste, especially for those expecting the film that the stylish trailer promises. It’s a movie that takes a while to digest and one that unspools like melting ice, slowly, clearly, and to a sharp dramatic point.
‘A Most Violent Year’
Director: J.C. Chandor
Starring: Oscar Issac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks
Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Release date: Jan. 23 (UK)
4 stars out of 5
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