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Created Sep 10, 2013 10:12PM PST • Edited Apr 02, 2017 01:45AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   This movie’s about Ruth and Bob, a fictional and extremely laconic Bonnie and Clyde. Plain names it’s got in spades, plainspoken words too. Plain, albeit a bit precious, e.g. the title: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

   Is that a question? No, it’s a Sundance sponsored project that comes up mostly aces for writer-director David Lowery. Can’t have too many Davids, I always say. This one’s a welcome addition to the cinema.

   However, his film is a bit too stately. He actually uses cello music for a story set in Texas. Now I love the large upright violin, but it’s a serious instrument for when a film needs heaviness. Beware the heaviness.

   Nonetheless, Casey Affleck delivers a perfect performance as a looney outlaw who just loves him his wife and their little girl. Damn. Casey ain’t got big Ben’s brawn, but he’s got lean skills. Mad lean skills.

   Sundance has a critical success on their hands with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. So does David Lowery, first for getting Redford’s crew to produce his film, then for creating an award-worthy movie.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Casey Affleck has become an actor of rare distinction, intensely interesting if not especially charismatic. One suspects he’d get more notice if his big brother weren’t Ben Affleck.

   In any case, his performance here ranks up with the perfect one he delivered in Gone Baby Gone.

   Rooney Mara matches up well with him as a Texas girl who knows how to protect what’s hers. Is Mara specializing in girls who play with fire?

   Supporters

   • Keith Carradine lends his distinctive baritone to the proceedings.
   • Ben Foster continues his run of solid supporting turns, here a surprisingly decent Texas lawman.
   • Kennadie Smith and her sister Jacklynn Smith as Ruth and Bob’s adorable little girl
   • Nate Parker as a dude named Sweetie, best friend a fellow con could have.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Three thoughts:

    • Well edited. Hell, there’s no shoe-leather at all.
    • David Lowery’s film is nothing if not committed to telling its multi-year story, a laconic riff on Bonnie and Clyde.
    • It feels dirty liking the movie’s killer couple: may be an Edginess thing, but it dogged the grade.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Good 3.0

    Bob loves Ruth. Ruth trusts Bob. Bob protects Ruth. Ruth protects Bob.

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Good 3.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Robustly sordid.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Brutal 2.9

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.6

    Circumstantially surreal, albeit modest in terms of the physical and biological.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.2

23. Biological Glib 1.7

24. Physical Natural 1.0