‘Good Joe Bell’ Film Review: Mark Wahlberg Hits the Road to Make You Cry
Toronto Film Festival 2020: The drama directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry is a quietly affecting road trip that gets to where it wants to go
The opening credits of “Good Joe Bell” point out that the film is based on a true story, but it might be best to go into it not knowing too much about that story.
That’s not because the film from director Reinaldo Marcus Green (“Monsters and Men”) in any way betrays the real events, or even distorts them too much — on the whole, the drama written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry is a careful and loving look at Joe Bell, an Oregon man who in 2013 set out to walk across the United States to bring attention to bullying after his son, Jadin, was mercilessly mocked and bullied for being gay.
But “Good Joe Bell” takes some twists and turns along the way, and contains a couple of significant surprises for viewers who come in without too much knowledge of the real events. Knowing where it’s going will have a real impact on how those revelations land, to the point where if you can come in fresh, you probably should.
(But afterward, you’ll probably want to learn more about the true events, which we won’t discuss in this review.)
An open-hearted, unapologetically emotional story of a man struggling to come to terms with what happened to his son and with his own complicity in it, “Good Joe Bell” makes good use of the Everyman appeal of Mark Wahlberg; if it doesn’t feel like a landmark the way Ossana and McMurtry’s “Brokeback Mountain” or McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show” and “Terms of Endearment” were, it’s a quietly affecting road trip that gets to where it wants to go and may prompt a few tears along the way.
The film starts in Idaho, with Joe Bell trudging by the side of the road as semi-trucks barrel past. He’s on a quest to speak out against bullying anywhere he can find people who will listen, but the first talk we see him give is desultory and unconvincing. Back on the road, he hears smack from Jadin, who is along on the walk to prod and needle his father and push him not to do the easy thing.
The film follows Joe on his walk but has copious flashbacks that fill in the story — beginning with the time Jadin told his father about the bullying, but Joe just wanted his son to toughen up. “It’ll all work itself out,” he says, anxious to return to the new big-screen TV in the other room. “Are we done here now?”
Joe has come a good distance both physically and mentally from that moment, but guilt weighs him down as he makes his way through Utah and into Colorado, acquiring a measure of recognition along the way. When his wife and younger son (Connie Britton and Maxwell Jenkins) come to visit him, he blows up at them and she snaps back, “Keep walking and don’t come home until you figure out what you want to be. And I hope it’s not some Facebook celebrity who gets your picture taken with people.”
Walhberg is entirely believable as a man trying to unlearn what were once his blunt, oafish responses to anything he didn’t want to face (though he seems to have accepted his son being gay, and even sings along with Jadin to Lady Gaga on the side of the road). And as Jadin, newcomer Reid Miller shines as a teen who wants to be out and unapologetic, but who’s forced to justify (or apologize for) his very existence just to get through the day.
As the flashbacks get more brutal, the movie grows sadder and Joe struggles to figure out how to truly make a stand for his son. The spine of the film, which is Joe’s walk, is a largely solitary pursuit, and the real journey he must make is an internal one — but in order for us to follow his progress, Joe needs to have moments where he talks to other people about what he’s going through, whether it’s a roadside conversation or a voicemail home. Some of these conversations make their points subtly enough, but others spell everything out in a way that feels a little too on-the-nose.
Gary Sinise, though, grounds the final stretch of the film with a quiet, understated performance as a sheriff that Joe encounters in Colorado; some of their moments together are as emotional and as affecting as anything in the film.
There are shocks along the way, handled gently or dropped as a gut punch. A couple of those may be the things that will stick with you from “Good Joe Bell” — unless you know the story and went in expecting them, in which case you may find that Green handled the difficult twists about as artfully as he could.
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What the Cannes virtual marketplace proved earlier this year is that even without the in-person meetings, the red carpet galas and all the press hype, there's still room for a lucrative sales market surrounding these virtual events. While that's true of this year's Toronto International Film Festival, the hybrid physical and virtual fest is operating on a slimmed-down lineup of movies. And with Oscar eligibility requirements pushed back to 2021, there isn't the same need for all of these movies to make a splash. That said, we are looking forward to quite a bit at this year's TIFF, and so are buyers.
Halle Berry takes a beating as a washed-up MMA fighter looking to make her redemption fight in "Bruised," which is also Berry's directorial debut. The film is set in New Jersey and explores her fight to get back into shape and win back her child. It also stars Adan Canto and Sheila Atim.
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"Concrete Cowboy"
Idris Elba and "Stranger Things'" Caleb McLaughlin play father and son in this family drama from Ricky Staub that draws on the history of Black cowboys in its adaptation of a novel by Greg Neri. McLaughlin is a troubled teen who is sent to live with his quiet, absentee father and is taught to work at his father's stables. Jharrel Jerome, Byron Bowers, Lorraine Toussaint and Clifford "Method Man" Smith also co-star.
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"Good Joe Bell"
Mark Wahlberg is getting early hype for his performance based on a true story of a father who takes a cross-country trip to honor his son and educate people about the dangers of bullying. The movie flashes back to show Wahlberg's conflicted and grudging relationship with his son's homosexuality and how he grows, even as it becomes too late. "Monsters and Men" director Reinaldo Marcus Green directs the film from the writers of "Brokeback Mountain."
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Rosamund Pike, Eiza González, Dianne West and Peter Dinklage star in this thriller about two women who use loopholes in the legal system to defraud elderly retirees of their family fortunes, only for them to end up angering a crime lord with their latest mark. J Blakeson wrote and directed the film.
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"MLK/FBI"
This documentary from Oscar nominee Sam Pollard is based on recently unclassified FBI documents and examines the surveillance and harassment the FBI used against Martin Luther King Jr. over years, including how J. Edgar Hoover hoped to discredit him and break his spirit. The film includes a discussion of how filmmaking and historians should use official materials from the FBI and other sources and how those sources color history.
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"New Order"
Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco's film first played Venice and is a drama set amid a violent protest in Mexico City. The film draws on sociopolitical themes and the class divide to show how the wealthy unwittingly empower an encroaching military rule in their attempt to keep power.
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"Penguin Bloom"
Naomi Watts is said to give a stellar performance in this true story based on the life of Sam Bloom, a woman who suffered a traumatic accident who finds an inspiring road to recovery after befriending a magpie bird as her companion. Glendyn Ivin directs the film that also stars Andrew Lincoln, Jacki Weaver and Rachel House.
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"Pieces of a Woman"
Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó directs Shia LaBeouf and Vanessa Kirby in this film inspired by '70s character dramas about a couple expecting a child who winds up grieving over a tragedy in two different ways. Kirby steals the show, but the film also includes a stand-out moment from Ellen Burstyn as Kirby's mother.
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"Shadow in the Cloud"
As part of the Midnight Madness section, Chloe Grace Moretz in "Shadow in the Cloud" is like "Alien" on a WWII bomber. Moretz is a fighter pilot on a mission to carry a piece of classified information and is sequestered from her sexist male counterparts but soon discovers a mysterious presence that threatens the safety of everyone aboard. Roseanne Liang directs the film.
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"The Water Man"
Another actor making their directorial debut, David Oyelowo's "The Water Man" is a mythical family film with an homage to the family movies of the 1980s. It's the story of a man who looks for a mystical creature with the secret to everlasting life in an effort to rescue his ailing mother. Oprah Winfrey executive produces the film that stars Oyelowo alongside Rosario Dawson, Lonnie Chavis, Amiah Miller, Alfred Molina and Maria Bello.
Photo Credit Karen Ballard
There are still some other movies playing as part of the festival that already have homes, including Chloé Zhao's "Nomadland" at Searchlight, Regina King's "One Night in Miami" at Amazon, the Kate Winslet-Saoirse Ronan drama "Ammonite" (pictured) at Neon, and Dawn Porter's documentary "The Way I See It" at Focus Features. Amazon Studios also recently acquired director Matthew Heineman's "The Boy From Medellín" about musician J Balvin.
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TIFF 2020: “Pieces of a Woman,” “The Water Man,” “I Care A Lot” and more are getting attention from buyers
What the Cannes virtual marketplace proved earlier this year is that even without the in-person meetings, the red carpet galas and all the press hype, there's still room for a lucrative sales market surrounding these virtual events. While that's true of this year's Toronto International Film Festival, the hybrid physical and virtual fest is operating on a slimmed-down lineup of movies. And with Oscar eligibility requirements pushed back to 2021, there isn't the same need for all of these movies to make a splash. That said, we are looking forward to quite a bit at this year's TIFF, and so are buyers.