The below is an advanced review out of the New York Film Festival. Master Gardener does not yet have a release date.
Paul Schrader has been on something of a tear of late, with a trio of films that play like deeply conflicted confessions he absolutely must get off his chest. In some sense, most of his work has felt that way (including Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which he wrote before his own directorial debut), but the raw triptych of First Reformed, The Card Counter, and now Master Gardener represents a thoughtful filmmaker working unapologetically at the height of his craft. His latest is arguably the most accomplished film of this informal trilogy, each focusing on men with troubled pasts reckoning with the present and the future. Where the former two were occasionally restrained by a languid approach, the latter deftly aestheticizes that listlessness in a tale of care and Christ-like patience coming into heated conflict with the violence that — if Schrader’s word is taken as Gospel — lurks within the hearts of men.
Master Gardener follows Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), a diligent, stoic, middle-aged gardener and horticulturist who looks after Gracewood Gardens, the lush Louisiana estate of Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), a stern and troubled older woman with familial complications. She’s just discovered the existence of her 20-something grand niece, a mixed race girl named Maya (Quintessa Swindell), to whom she’s the only remaining family, since the Haverhills forced her Black father out of the picture years ago. As a matter of duty, Norma urges Narvel to take Maya under his wing, a role she quickly settles into amongst Narvel’s other employees. However, the wounds of modern America remain exposed to the elements, between lurking white supremacy that threatens Maya in her new environment, and the baggage of economic collapse and illicit drug dealing that tags just behind her.
As thoughtful as it is thorny, Master Gardener opens — as Schrader’s recent movies have — with Narvel, God’s lonely traveler, seated at a dim bedroom table and scribbling in his diary. His voiceover speaks largely of gardening, both its history as a symbol of class in the gilded age, and its philosophy of rebirth and nourishment, as he treats this sprawling paradise as a fragile refuge he must maintain. Schrader doesn’t initially let us in on Narvel’s ugly past, but the character’s long sleeves, and his slick parting with a side fade, offer puzzle pieces that fit neatly into place once all is revealed. His prior allegiances, should they become known, are likely to make impossible many of his present circumstances, including his mentorship over Maya. These secrets are just as likely to cause revulsion on paper as they are in practice, something Schrader ensures with his sudden, disquieting bursts of flashback that are monstrous, bloody, and — it would seem — unforgivable. However, Master Gardener is ultimately a film about grace, and though it doesn’t put the onus of this grace on any one wronged group or person, it makes it a central fixture to the way Narvel is seen by the outside world, and the way he sees himself.
The specifics are best left unspoiled — or rather, best left discovered during the movie, if only for Schrader’s shockingly unceremonious revelations, which feel grossly matter-of-fact — but the premise alone is sure to draw at least some amount of ire. Schrader, as evidenced by his odd and uncouth Facebook presence, is hardly afraid of perception. However, he avoids flattening his story into a fable about forgiveness, not by following a strict or prescriptive moral path when it comes to America’s social ills, but by rounding out Maya in intriguing, often paradoxical ways, including the details of her own past, which soon catches up with her. In a more preachy film, Maya’s affinity for her mentor might play like permission to quickly forgive sins that aren’t so easy to wash away. But Narvel isn’t quick to forgive himself for his actions and Maya, upon learning of them, is practically nauseated, despite their growing affection for one another. The Card Counter’s revelations were difficult to swallow; Master Gardener’s are even more so, owing to how they challenge our capacity for forgiveness, when what’s supposedly being forgiven is made harshly literal and in-your-face, when it could so easily have been left abstract in order to soften the blow.
If anything, Master Gardener is the perfect encapsulation of a statement Schrader made not long ago, which sums up his recent cinematic trajectory: “I used to be an artist who never wanted to leave this world without saying fuck you, and now I’m an artist who never wants to leave this world without saying I love you.” This warring sense of care and anger bleeds through practically every image. This is owed not only to Edgerton’s measured performance, as a man whose carefully crafted demeanor is underscored by a subdued chaos, but to Schrader’s visual approach, which imbues each frame of the sprawling gardens with a roving unpredictability. The film seems deceptively simple at first, a tale of a violent man who takes comfort in the serene, and a pithy, message-first relationship fable of people from opposing backgrounds (think Where Hands Touch, or worse yet, Neo Ned). But at its core, it’s about the ways in which love and hate become so deeply entwined that differentiating them becomes an act akin to unraveling oneself from within.
The Card Counter’s revelations were difficult to swallow; Master Gardener’s are even more so.
Schrader’s characters all walk this path, and it’s anything but easy, whether it comes to recognizing the full spectrum of lived experience in other people or within themselves. Ultimately, Master Gardener blooms in moving fashion, as that recognition becomes — no matter how briefly — a promise of mercy, made in intimate whispers, and a glowing belief in some semblance of future, in a world where discarding people might just be the easier option.
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