Six of us who hate fracking liked very much this story of two salespeople working to get locals in rural Pennsylvania to sell their mineral rights to a natural gas company for hydraulic fracturing. Written by John Krasinski (last blogged in It's Complicated) and Matt Damon (most recently here in We Bought a Zoo) from a story by Dave Eggers (profiled in his first feature Away We Go, in which Krasinski starred, after which Eggers co-adapted Where the Wild Things Are with its director Spike Jonze but I somehow forgot to say so), it was meant to be Damon's directorial debut, but due to other commitments and "creative differences" (no idea) the project was directed by Gus Van Sant (covered in Restless). Damon is very good as the confident pitchman as is Frances McDormand (in detail in Moonrise Kingdom) as his colleague. Krasinski shows up in the second act as an environmentalist with his trademark grin. Rosemarie DeWitt (Your Sister's Sister) and the venerable Hal Holbrook (got his first Oscar nomination for Into the Wild (2007) when he was 82 and is this year nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the ensemble of Lincoln, playing Preston Blair; but he may be better known for playing the 16th president himself as well as Mark Twain on stage and TV; Scott reminded us, "He was married to Dixie Carter!") are among the excellent supporting cast.
Danny Elfman's (Hitchcock and many more) soundtrack is different work for him and well worth a listen (here--click on the arrows next to 320 in each row). We also liked the photography.
Apparently a gas industry trade group is running brief ads (pro-fracking) before 75% of Pennsylvania's screenings of this movie. Feh.
Speaking of feh, this movie has been poorly reviewed, scoring only 50% from critics and 40 from audiences on rottentomatoes. There are a few holes in the third act so I would give it a respectable 80.
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