Stillwater (2021) Film Review | Movie-Blogger.com
A father’s flexibility is subject to many things Tom McCarthy‘s Standing water. At first, things seem very simple. This is a working-class man from Oklahoma who puts everything aside to go to France to support his daughter. You can see he’s broken inside. He’s been supporting what’s left of his family for years, and now he has to face a father’s worst fear: seeing his child lose his life in prison. She claims to be innocent and he believes her more than anything else. When there is a chance for release (and redemption), he considers it blindly. Bill Baker is so deep into his agenda that he changes his life to prove his daughter’s innocence.
This is when Standing water it enters the realm of the dramatic and the sober, which does not admit the remote idea that it is all for naught. Because the plot allows some ideas: what if he is actually innocent? Who is the killer in the murder mystery? How far is Bill willing to go to prove it? He is right in every scenario. He’s fighting for something he believes is certain, and it all involves letting his daughter go free as a victim. However, the secret is in it Standing water darker than you think. It doesn’t even matter if he did or not. What matters now is how a father does everything to make us believe he is right.
McCarthy’s film is led by an incredibly versatile Matt Damon as Baker. Its performance is impeccable. There are no exaggerations or melodramatic twists to turn your character into a collection of possibilities. Damon forces us to believe that a man prioritizes protecting his daughter above all else. But he doesn’t do it with explosive tones, or even with a change of attitude. His physicality conveys a coldness necessary to believe in his mission.
Standing water a stark drama that turns into a crime drama because it becomes a lifestyle for Baker and he will never stop trying to achieve his goal of proving his daughter’s innocence. This is why the ending of the film is invasive, poignant, even disturbing. When he learns the whole truth about the case, he understands that the moral decay is his alone. The others just made mistakes, unintentionally and almost involuntarily. Baker is the only one with many demons in his mind who never leave him.
This Matt Damonits best performance in the last 10 years.
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