Director: Nash Edgerton

Cast: Joel Edgerton, David Roberts, Anthony Hayes, and Peter Phelps

Rated: R

Runtime: 116 min.

 

 

Russian author Anton Chekhov defined a practice in storytelling that states if a gun is introduced in the first act of a story, then in the third act that gun must be used. This overused device appears frequently in film, above all in thrillers. It’s a tired mechanism that’s applied to curious, perhaps metaphoric extremes in The Square, an engaging neo-noir from Australia. Instead of a gun, writers Joel Edgerton and Matthew Dabner introduce the concept of sharks swimming upstream into a freshwater river. Later in the film, the shark makes an unexpected appearance and devours a periphery character. Though this has little direct bearing on the surrounding plot, it’s one of the dark film’s best, if arguably inconsequential moments.

Due comparisons to Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat, which reaches back to Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, this grim tale offers a slew of familiar noir components: an affair, a load of cash, an accidental murder, and the scrambling by characters to cover up their tracks along the way. The setting is a warm summer Christmas in a Sydney suburb, a hot and rainy season that lends a contrasting atmosphere to the typical chiaroscuro noir picture situated in the metropolis. Here, wiping the brow or watching the rain equates to hiding in the shadows. The characters lead humble lives, mullets are frequent, and rarely is a smart decision made.

The title refers to a space of land on a construction site awaiting concrete to be poured. Ray (David Roberts), the construction supervisor, arranges with a subcontractor for a cash kickback on the job; this will allow Ray freedom to escape his dead marriage and run off with his married neighbor Clara (Claire van der Boom). But it will also take time, and Clara is impatient. An easier solution: A bag of cash that Clara saw her husband, the tow-truck driver Smithy (Anthony Hayes), stash away in the attic. Clara convinces Ray to arrange a scheme that would place the money in their hands but leave no one the wiser. So Ray hires Billy (Joel Edgerton) to burn down Smithy’s house when the house is empty, and meanwhile Clara will have already taken and stashed the cash elsewhere. That way, Smithy thinks the money was burned up. Of course, nothing works out as planned and bodies begin to pile up. You can bet one of them gets buried in the square, and as delays prevent the concrete from being poured and the body being hidden, Ray sweats. 

 

 

Continued HERE

 

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