‘Downtown Owl’ Review: The Music And Spirit Of Elvis Costello Drive This Thoughtful Backwater Dramedy – Tribeca Film Festival
deadline.comIt might sound like a backhanded compliment, but Downtown Owl feels more like a pilot than a feature film and may yet yield a series.
In today’s market, that could work out just fine for directors Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe, who, after a choppy start, finesse Chuck Klosterman’s digressive 2007 novel into a thoughtful, broad-canvas ensemble piece.
T Bone Burnett helps nail things down with an eclectic alt-country score and soundtrack, infused with the music and spirit of Elvis Costello, but it’s Rabe that holds it all together onscreen with a controlled yet still wildly uninhibited performance.
After a flashforward to a white-out blizzard in January 1984, the action winds back nine months to the summer of 1983, which is when English teacher Julia Rabia (Rabe) swaps urban Milwaukee for the backwater of Owl, North Dakota, to take up a post in a remote school on the recommendation of her father. “You will be popular here, Miss Rabia,” the realtor tells her. “Very, very popular.” Which absolutely proves to be the case, since “downtown” amounts to a stretch of road with just a diner, two gas stations and three bars, and any female newcomer is watched with hawk eyes.
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