THE SQUARE
Directed by Nash Edgerton
Produced by Louise Smith
Written by Joel Edgerton and Matthew Dabner, based on an original story by Joel Edgerton
Released by Apparition
Australia. 116 min. Rated R
With David Roberts, Claire van der Boom, Joel Edgerton, Anthony Hayes, Peter Phelps, Bill Hunter & Hanna Mangan-Lawrence
 

By the second decade of the 21^st century, we have been schooled in the genre conventions of noir to such a degree that we know the structure, the archetypes, and the narrative moves backwards and forwards. Noir is ubiquitous, and because of this, it has become internalized. Therefore, it takes especially skilled hands to truly surprise us, to truly make us feel awful when events unfold, and to truly earn the inevitability of the protagonist’s downfall. The Coen brothers do this more often than not, and while Joel and Nash Edgerton’s first feature The Square has been compared to the Coens—mostly because they’re brothers and to the genre choice—the Edgertons are really doing something quite different.

The Square is a simple story. Raymond (David Roberts) and Carla (Claire van der Boom) are engaged in a May-December extramarital affair; Ray to escape the monotony of a mediocre marriage, Carla to escape the nothingness of her dodgy hickshit husband, Greg. They want to run away together, but Raymond is diffident and fearful. Then one day, Carla discovers a large bag of her husband’s stolen cash hidden in the attic and suggests she and Raymond take it to start anew. But a missing bag of cash must be covered up.

From the moment the heist is suggested, their plan creates a knot in one’s stomach that solidifies once Ray finally agrees to it. An air of inevitability hangs over the film and suffuses every subsequent moment with a visceral dread. And the Edgertons take the lovers’ inaugural choice and make it more and more tangible as the film continues, so that one bad decision begets further and further predicaments. Small errors early on have monstrous effects later.

There are maybe literally tons of schlocky noirish films that miss the mark by fathoms. Even the Coens, masters of the genre, are sometimes somewhat careless with their characters, contemptuous or perhaps uncaring at times. What makes The Square such an engaging film is that everyone, even the ostensible villains of the piece, have real, emotional lives. The audience feels anxious because they actually care about the characters. There is something at stake for everyone, so that when the foreseeable happens, it is not simply fulfilling the noir equation. Andrew Beckerman
April 9, 2010