R | 1h 44m | Drama | 2024
Over the course of the last 30 years, I’ve seen well over 5,000 movies. Most of them (meaning 50 percent plus one) weren’t worth my and, by extension, your time. The bulk of the remainder range from just OK to very good. Around 250 of them I would deem to be excellent.
When watching a movie, I look for three things: Is it entertaining, is it doing something different, and is my life better for having watched it. Hitting all three rarely happens. A movie can be excellent without being different or without changing my world, “Braveheart,” “Gladiator,” and “The Departed,” for example.
A few of my Big Three titles include “Sling Blade,” “American Beauty,” “Duma,” “The King’s Speech,” and “Oppenheimer.” I can now add “Daruma” to that short list.
An “indie” by every definition of that word, it’s a low-budget drama featuring a cast I’d previously (save for one) never heard of, with a screenplay that surprised me at every turn. Anyone who does what I do for as long as I have can pretty much figure out how a movie will end before the end of the first act. That didn’t happen here by a long shot.
Rock Bottom
The lead character here is Patrick (Tobias Forrest), an older wheelchair-bound war veteran who has pretty much hit rock bottom. His Arizona house is a pigsty littered with beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and weeks-old to-go food containers. He’s got a stack of past-due bills that could choke a horse, yet patronizes the local “exotic dancing” establishment nightly.
One night, the self-loathing Patrick attempts suicide by pill overdose. He’s rescued by two state family service professionals who inform him that he’s the father of a recently orphaned 4-year-old girl (Victoria Scott) whose mother just died of cancer.
Patrick denies all of it until one of the employees informs him that the mother’s insurance policy named him as the guardian beneficiary to the tune of $4,000 a month. Go figure: Patrick will give the parenting thing a stab not because it’s the right thing to do, but because he’s getting paid.
The Male Karen?
On the margins for most of the first act is Patrick’s neighbor Robert (John W. Lawson), a double amputee and fellow war veteran with whom Patrick butts heads on a daily basis. At first, Robert comes across as an angry, busybody male “Karen” who lives to torment Patrick, but the exact opposite is true. As the movie progresses, Robert slowly reveals his own backstory; it’s a wonder he’s so amiable and well-adjusted.
After a few weeks of giving parenting a chance, Patrick determines that he can’t pull it off. He decides to grant guardianship to Camilla’s mother’s parents (Barry Bostwick and Madonna Young Magee) living in Rhode Island. Because he’s a good soul, Robert agrees to drive Patrick and Camilla across the country. This is when “Daruma” transforms into an atypical, mismatched buddy road flick.
Smashing Tropes
All of the characters here behave like real people, not cutesy, stock movie characters. Patrick remains unlikable most of the time, Robert only gets more appealing with time, Camilla never falls prey to typical youngster tropes while being surprisingly insightful, and Anna never waivers from her core beliefs or does anything that compromises her dignity.The title of the movie comes from the “Daruma Doll,” an ancient religious symbol that shows up in the form of a tattoo on Robert’s back. Patrick notices it as Robert plays with Camilla in a hotel swimming pool. I won’t explain its meaning here.
Casting Forrest and Lawson, actors with the same real-life disabilities as the characters they play, might initially come across as pandering or overtly P.C. but the exact opposite is true. These two men are both excellent actors and share superb chemistry that’s hard earned, long in coming, and well worth the wait.
I’ve already seen most of the 2024 movies of note. While there might be another that could take me by surprise within the next week, I’m reasonably sure that “Daruma” will end up being my favorite movie of the year.
