Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch play highway workers, complete opposites, whose job it is to paint centerlines on a rural Texas roadway. “An unconventional, ultimately rather sweet buddy pic that's an audiovisual treat.” — Variety
An unconventional, ultimately rather sweet buddy pic that’s an audiovisual treat.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2013
Prince Avalanche 2013
“In this adaptation of the 2011 Icelandic movie Either Way, Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch play highway workers, complete opposites, whose job it is to paint center lines on a rural Texas road circa summer 1988. Excepting the occasional visitor, such as elderly trucker Lance LeGault, it is a season spent in near isolation during which the two disparate souls build an unlikely friendship…
As [director David Gordon Green] steps back into the atmospheric storytelling of earlier work like George Washington and All the Real Girls, his film’s additional star is its central Texas setting of Bastrop State Park, ravaged by a devastating wildfire in 2011. Green’s longtime collaborator, cameraman Tim Orr transforms the scorched landscape into a leading character and makes Prince Avalanche the most beautiful buddy movie in recent memory.” — Steve Ramos, San Francisco International Film Festival
“What makes the performances so enjoyable and unexpectedly touching is that the parallel arcs of this twin character study are drawn with such delicacy. Hirsch is impish, abrasive and a little lost… In a nuanced turn that swings from funny to angry to emotionally raw and back again, Rudd draws on stage skills that have been largely untapped in his recent films.
When Alvin and Lance finally tune in to the person beneath the grating flaws, they stop condescending and start listening to one another. Perhaps Green’s chief accomplishment in this odd little gem of a movie is that he coaxes that mutual compassion out of the characters without having to put it into words.” — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter