Charming First Pitch

Off the Black

(R)

originally published February 7, 2007

Trevor Morgan and Nick Nolte

With its local connections, a film like James Ponsoldt’s Off the Black intimidates me. Rip off a bad review and how many of Ponsoldt’s friends and family are going to deluge the Flagpole with angry polemics about my pretentiousness/ arrogance/ intellect (or lack thereof)/ mother? Polish off a shining explication of the beautiful wonder that is Off the Black, and I’m just another DJ taking payola under the table. I haven’t even begun to discuss the frustrated filmmaker, resembling an angry David the Gnome, who resides deep in my gut. That little fellow’s always good for a jealous evisceration of someone else’s hard work that I could have done better, of course. Considering the inner turmoil of my psychological state as I ventured into a Friday afternoon screening of Ponsoldt’s film, my genuine captivation with and unbegrudged admiration for Off the Black only reinforces my belief that it’s one of the most steadily compelling independent features I’ve seen in the near three years I’ve hacked away at this gig.

In no small way am I a true believer in the perfection of indie cinema. Most of the films that fall into this category utter the same ponderous life lessons/ character quirks in perfectly matching cinematic drawls. But when done well, the pensive, empty cutaways of clear blue skies pierced by intrusive smokestacks and aboveground swimming pools provide moments of silence necessary to tidy the mind after life flutters a knuckleball across the plate for strike two.

With the amateurishness of reality, Off the Black meanders through two small-town lives forever changed by a close call made behind the plate of a high school baseball game. Cedar Springs pitcher Dave Tibbel (Trevor Morgan, Jurassic Park III) had thrown a heck of a game when he walks in the winning run, according to umpire Ray Cook (two-time Academy Award nominee Nick Nolte; talk about a casting coup). Dave and his dumbass friends/ teammates decide to teach Cook, who lives alone with his beer-drinking dog (fortunately, Ponsoldt never relies on the peculiar hermit crutch for too much dramatic support), a lesson by vandalizing his home. After being caught, nice-guy Dave slowly befriends the unsurprisingly unhappy alcoholic, an unsteady but physically present replacement for his emotionally crippled photographer father (Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton). Dave’s need for a stand-in father is only matched by Ray’s desire for a pseudo-son to accompany him to his 40th high school reunion, an event at which the dying man (did I forgot to mention Ray’s terminal illness?) sorely wishes to impress.

The directionless Off the Black’s sudden beeline for due dramatic north - Dave and Ray attending the reunion as father and son - would degenerate into the forced laughs of a sitcom in the hands of a lesser humanist. (I can only imagine the hilarity of the never-produced episode of “Mr. Belvedere” where the portly, prissy butler takes hellion Wesley to whatever stuffy British school the former royal worker attended.) Ponsoldt’s screenplay is far from perfect. Who diabetic, single mother Debra (Rosemarie DeWitt, “Standoff”) is and how she is connected to Ray never emerges from the haze of inessentiality. I was just pleased that she never became the film’s Y tu mamá también temptress. Also, Dave’s mothering little sister never emerges from her pubescent characterless cocoon, partly due to Sonia Feigelson’s uneven performance.

None of Ponsoldt’s slight missteps can tarnish the film’s overall gleam. Morgan and Nolte generate a pleasantly electric mentor-mentee chemistry. Both are on-screen for several extended takes - an indie trope I prefer to Hollywood’s quick cutting - engaging in little more than still deliberation. Nolte has long been one of America’s finest actors, though his career has taken an interesting turn since his surprising 1997 Oscar loss to Roberto Benigni. (The brown-bagging Nolte looked pretty pissed after the sprightly Italian clambered his way to the podium.) Nolte’s appeared in 18 films since Affliction, but his only role in a major film was 2003’s Hulk. Since, the gruff performer, his blonde mane as constantly unkempt as in his infamous mug shot, has been off perfecting his reluctant adviser in small films like The Peaceful Warrior before emerging in Off the Black as the loving, real and flawed curmudgeon, the likable grouch videotaping his sad life for an undemonstrative audience. Morgan nearly matches Nolte point for point and owns some winning moments as well. His bemused guilt at meeting Ray’s hospitalized father keeps the scene from coagulating, and his earnest execution as Ray’s son guarantees the gambit’s rising above its potential for blundering misunderstanding.

Ponsoldt pulls off a pretty impressive trick in his first feature. (I don’t know what the future holds for the local filmmaker. A successful first film almost certainly ensures a combustible scrutiny of any sophomore effort. I hope Ponsoldt can survive the heat.) He crafts a personal, unobtrusive study of the fragile, transferable ties of family whose foot never gets mangled by the independent bear traps of gratuitous eccentricities, seedy twists and sordid subplots. Off the Black wears its gaps of story and hefty silences with the panache of a film twice its budget, thanks to Ponsoldt and his collaborators in front of and behind the camera (Nolte, Morgan, All the Real Girls cinematographer John Orr and Hope For Agoldensummer’s Claire Campbell). The film looks, feels, and moves exactly like any number of its indie cohorts, but Black confidently engages the audience’s mind in both working and playing with a down-to-earth rendering of small-town life. Off the Black may not be the perfect pitch, but it’s close enough to the black to warrant a swing.

Drew Wheeler