Toronto Film Fest: ‘The Burning Plain’ fizzles out

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Fresh off its premiere in Venice (see photo above), where it played to a decidedly mixed response, ‘The Burning Plain’ arrived here in Toronto on Friday night to a decidedly mixed response.

The directing debut of writer Guillermo Arriaga, is preceded by his oft-lauded scripts for the Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarittu films ‘Amores Perros,’ ‘21 Grams’ and ‘Babel.’ All those films, as well as Arriaga’s script for ‘The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada,’ famously featured complex interlocking narratives, which overlap (or don’t), splaying characters, geographies and languages across the screen in a sometimes astonishing mix of literary ambition. ‘The Burning Plain’ suffers for essentially feeling like more of the same, from a writer (and now filmmaker) who seems intent on keeping the surprises coming.

Built around a central image of a mobile home trailer ablaze in the middle of an open field -- hence the title, get it? -- the film feels too programmatic, as it is too easy to think of the writer at work, note cards pinned to a wall or perhaps a Venn diagram drawn on a dry-erase board. The film doesn’t breathe, never catches the awkward, unpredictable air of humanity as it locks itself into its creator’s overly schematic conceits.

Who was in that trailer, how they got there and the ongoing emotional aftermath of what they left behind forms the centerpiece of the film, which bounces between years and locales from one cut to antihero. Once the viewer understands how all the puzzle-pieces fit together, the film becomes a bit of a slow drag as it marches dutifully along. And though the finale brings everything together in a bold, expansive montage, showing finally how a person moves forward even as they can never escape their past, it is more a relief than a revelation.

Charlize Theron continues her campaign to prove she is more than just a pretty face, portraying a wayward, self-cutting restaurant manager with deep secrets that won’t stay submerged. Though she commands the screen with her presence (and occasional nudity, an increasing rarity for an actress of her stature), she is never able to connect the dots to make the character anything more than the plot device Arriaga needs her to be.

‘The Burning Plain’ winds up a soft fizzle, more a dutiful exercise than anything else.

-- Mark Olsen