titlethe hawk is dying writer/directorJulian Goldberger year2006 gradeB
For those who fully embrace the second half of Keats's axiom, "truth [is] beauty," The Hawk is Dying will be a profoundly beautiful thing to watch—it is intensely truthful. It is a straightforward, uningratiating, and courageously sincere piece of filmmaking.
Paul Giamatti is George, an intellectual living as an anonymous car accessories salesman in rural Florida, who has a passion for training hawks. He and his nephew, Fred (Michael Pitt), spend their time together in the woods and fields behind the house, while his sister, Precious (Rusty Schwimmer), Fred's mother, spends her days withdrawn in the house with Fresca and People Magazine. Fred, who is autistic, has an uncanny sensitivity that enables him to sometimes help George catch hawks to train. George has an uncommon friend in Betty (Michelle Williams), a young psychology student who has listened and born witness to George's many attempts to tame the hawks— so far, without success.
As you may have guessed, The Hawk is Dying is not an excessively cheerful film. But the bizarre specificity of every circumstance renders every occurrence in the film undeniably real. And we feel only very real shock and grief when Fred, hitherto the meaning in George's life, dies.
The events of Fred's last night, spent with Betty, again are communicated with unimpeachable honesty. The conflict in Betty's face, the unspoken acquiescence of her stillness as Fred removes her shirt, is just one of many brilliant moments for Williams throughout the film. Her performance is as subtly balanced as his her character is off-kilter.
In the aftermath of Fred's death, George devotes himself to the hawk. He foregoes sleep and food until she will eat from his hand. Winning the hawk's respect, for George, means everything— her honor is the ultimate grace. Though his passion sounds bizarre in writing, when Giamatti's conviction makes it seem natural. Successfully taming the hawk is a need for him, not just a desire of which he can choose to let go.
The film is intimate in a way that might make some viewers uncomfortable. All of the characters lack reticence, giving the story a level of emotional intensity, the conversations a degree of earnestness, that borders on exhausting. In my experience, however, such people exist and such lives are lived.
I do not plan to watch this movie again soon. I won't need to. Julian Goldberger tells his story with purity and intensity that does not require iteration.
A rant to balance this rave: click here.
