By: Andrew Wing, Contributing Writer
Stillwater is a 2021 crime drama film directed by Academy Award-Winner Tom McCarthy, based on a script he co-wrote with Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, and Noé Debré, The film stars Matt Damon as Bill Baker, an unemployed oil rig worker from Stillwater, Oklahoma, who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin), who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. With the help of a French woman, Virginie (Camille Cottin), Bill must overcome the language barriers, cultural differences, and complicated legal system to prove his convicted daughter’s innocence.
Stillwater had its world premiere at the famous Cannes Film Festival on July 8, 2021, and recently hit theaters this week on July 30th. The film is also loosely based on the story of Amanda Knox.
THE GOOD
I remember being really excited when I saw the trailer for Stillwater for the first time a few months ago. I mean how could I not be? It is a movie starring Matt Damon in a lead role as a true Southerner with one hell of a goatee. Also, being someone who as recently as this year watched Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, the 2015 drama film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards, for the very first time, I knew I had to check out Stillwater as soon as it hit theaters and I’m glad I did.
I might as well go ahead and state the obvious but the best part of this movie was hands down the performance of Matt Damon as Bill Baker. Out of the 140 minutes of the film’s run time, Damon is probably on screen for about 130 of them and in every scene he just shows us why he is one of the best in the business today. His performance just feels so real from the beginning to the end and his chemistry with all of the other major characters only adds to that feeling of realness you get when you watch.
You will find yourself feeling like you are experiencing everything with his character through the ups and downs and all you will want to do is hope he gets his daughter back and ultimately finds the happiness he has been searching for his whole life. It might not be his best work which would probably be either Good Will Hunting (1997) or The Martian (2015) in my opinion, but it is right up there in terms of his individual performances and I wouldn’t be surprised if he collected his third Best Actor nomination with this one.
Other than the all-star performance from Matt Damon, this was just another great drama brought to us from the mind of Tom McCarthy. The one thing you know you are going to get with any McCarthy film is an intelligent story with many themes throughout that tackle real-world problems and that is just the case with Stillwater. Also with McCarthy films, you know you are going to get solid performances from the supporting characters and in this movie that was Abigail Breslin and Camille Cottin. Breslin’s performance as Baker’s daughter Allison is superb as she is able to showcase her wide range of emotions with the character, and Cottin’s performance was really impressive as it was the first film I had ever seen her in, but it won’t be the last with her as she is starring in Ridley Scott’s biographical crime film House of Gucci coming later this year so I look forward to seeing her in that.
THE BAD
I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody who will say they straight up did not like this film. It is just a well-done film that I really enjoyed, but I won’t lie, there were a couple things that I wish would have been different.
First, with more than 90% of this movie taking place in Marseille, there are many scenes where the language being spoken is French, and while there are obviously subtitles that tell you what is being said, it makes you really have to pay attention and I couldn’t help but feel that there was just something missing in the important scenes because rather than the hearing what was being said, I was reading it. I also understand that McCarthy did this to try and make us feel what Damon’s character needed to overcome with the language barrier to get his daughter back but that is just my opinion.
Second, and I’ll be curious to know your thoughts if you go ahead and take my suggestion and check this movie out, but I did not love the ending to this. With this movie being as long as it is (140 minutes = not a bad thing), it felt like throughout the movie they were building up to this big epic finale and in my opinion, what I got just wasn’t what I was expecting. Overall, I was fine with the ending and it doesn’t take away from it being a really good movie, but without giving too much away, it almost felt unfinished to me in a sense.
THE VERDICT
With another hard-hitting dramatic tale from the great Tom McCarthy and another outstanding performance from the one and only Matt Damon, Stillwater tells the emotional journey of Bill Baker, a simple man from the southern United States who must overcome numerous obstacles to prove his daughter’s innocence as she is in a French prison for a crime she claims she did not commit. It is now playing in theaters and I highly recommend checking it out.
TED TAKES RATING - 8.3/10
Stillwater is now playing in theaters. Check out the latest trailer below.