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 From
its first sun-dappled moments, capturing cornfields, hay bales, crop
dusters, stockyards and barnyards, we are instantly pulled deep into the
world of director Kimberly Levin’s Runoff. We are moved from what was
perhaps a vague, wistful notion of this rural existence to witness the
harsh realities of a tragically disappearing American way of life.
The
United States has come very far from a land where the populace depended
on farming; either for the food on their tables, or as the means to make
a living, to one in which the rise of agriculture conglomerates has made
the family farm increasingly obsolete. Feeling the pinch in their old
Kentucky home, Frank and Betty cut every possible corner to make ends
meet. Frank’s animal pharmaceutical business is dwindling as large
corporations offer the necessary antibiotics and medicines to farmers
who come under their umbrella at rates Frank simply can’t compete with.
Lifelong farmers themselves, Frank and Betty find themselves threatened
after turning down one corporation’s offer for their land. Living
month-to-month, the family was just able to keep a roof over their
heads, however, when the company uses the bank to foreclose on Frank and
Betty’s home, the desperation becomes real. Adding to Betty’s woes is
the fact that Frank has become seriously ill and refuses to receive
proper treatment, another calamitous expense, which Frank won’t face,
instead wishing it away or putting it off as the sickness gains on him.
There is also their rebellious, talented son, Finley, who Frank and
Betty are determined will be the first of their family to go to college,
whatever the cost.
A
neighbor offers the family a way out, but it is by a means that Betty
would never have considered in anything other than the direst
circumstances. He offers Frank and Betty the job of illegally dumping
drums of expired milk filled with all the chemicals – sold by the couple
– the cows have ingested, in whatever way they see fit, as long as it
isn’t traced back to him. Logically, that would mean pouring it into
the town’s river. Frank flat-out refuses, but Betty, desperate to hold
her family together even if it’s against the wishes of her idealistic
husband and her own better instincts, takes the work and chooses to
worry about the consequences another time.
As I
mentioned, the initial striking quality of Runoff is its cinematography,
which is simply stunning. Taking us into the works of actual pig farms,
dairy farms, and turkey farms, we see the conditions of the modern
agricultural world in a depth rarely shown outside of documentaries.
The natural beauty of the exteriors and scenes like the farmhands’
children at play along streams and in woods, makes an idyllic contrast
to the severe circumstances threatening both the land and its people.
What should be a clean, honest living; growing food for people to eat,
has become an ugly, complicated business full of literal poison and
ethical corruption. The farming corporation’s influence spreads like a
virus throughout the town, and little by little we see more signs of
their invasion; like the giant banners on the sides of barns that
declare they have taken over yet another property. Those contracted to
the conglomerate cannot break out of their iron grip, as is shown when
even offering Frank and Betty a scrap of legitimate business is
considered an infraction. Their control is total, and being such a huge
corporate leviathan, they can undercut any price for any supply offered
by an independent operator like Frank. Though Runoff is a work of
fiction, it is a horrifying truth that this beautiful and vital part of
this country’s way of life is being choked out of existence by what is
clearly an antitrust and monopoly dealing in unfair competition that has
been allowed to run rampant.
This
is only one of Levin’s many messages tucked into Runoff. She leaves a
lot unexposed; trusting the viewer to hang in and figure things out as
she leads us through the family’s ordeal. Besides our initiation into
the evils of corporate agriculture and its effect on farmers across
America, we also begin to see a darker side of the small farming trade
that reveals itself in how a lifetime of working with animal
antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals might or might not have
affected Frank’s health. We wonder why it is that Frank and Betty’s
“artistic” son, Finley, keeps coming home beaten up? After living her
entire life in her town, with friends on every corner, why is it Betty
feels she can only ask the Latino immigrant farmhand for help in
committing the dirty deed after her own husband refuses to have anything
to do with it? It isn’t until the very end of the film that we even get
an entire view of what exactly was so problematic about the contents of
the containers, and it comes with one gut-punch of an image, as Betty
drives past cornfields that were healthy and fertile, now ruined and
dry, feeding only bugs and spiders. It is to Levin’s credit that one
walks away from Runoff feeling as if they have received an education,
yet never lectured to or talked at. Levin doesn’t preach and trusts the
intelligence of her viewers, as well as the pacing of her storytelling
to let us come to our own conclusions. While that can sometimes feel
frustrating, and yes, occasionally pacing is an issue, overall Runoff
manages to entertain as well as enlighten.
Most
of that entertainment comes from the sterling performance of Joanne
Kelly as Betty, who embodies the image of not only a young, modern
mother, but of a child raised to love and respect the land. She is
fierce and strong, yet never brittle. She is still madly in love with
her dreamer husband, the doting, understanding shoulder for her troubled
Finley, and dotes upon Sam, her youngest boy. In a summer that has
given us the revolutionary Mad Max: Fury Road, where I raved about
seeing female heroes who didn’t make a big deal of being heroes and
simply got on with it, Betty is made of similar stuff. She’s not out
for applause or bigger things, she just wants to keep her family
together and does what she feels she has to do. I would stop short of
calling Betty a hero, because ultimately what she’s done is incredibly
wrong, but it’s nearly impossible not to relate and understand why she’s
done this awful thing. The fact that she and Frank have sold the
pharmaceuticals that are now swirling lethally in the liquid she must
now dispose of, gives her a bit more burden of guilt. Perhaps with the
exception of the conglomerate, there really are no clean-cut heroes or
villains in Runoff; they’re all just people trying to live in the only
ways they know how, and in some cases, with the only desperate means
left to them.
Also
worth noting in the cast as aspiring artist, Finley, is young Alex
Shaffer, who I last raved about in the Paul Giamatti starrer, Win Win,
where he played a sad, sweet boy from very dysfunctional family. Here
the family is actually pretty functional, but growing pains are
universal and Finley knows he’s not cut out for the life of his parents,
or meant to stay in their farming town.
With
Runoff, Levin has managed to create an engrossing and relatable drama in
which to artfully weave her themes. It’s been a while since I felt like
a left a movie a bit smarter than when I walked in, and a very long time
since a fictional film made me angry and sad and motivated to do more.
~The
Lady Miz Diva
June
17th, 2015
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