Joe Bell
The most honest line in “Joe Bell” comes late in the movie, where the titular character (played by Mark Wahlberg) tells a sheriff whom has come to check on him, “I made Jadin’s death all about Joe Bell.” I cannot help but agree with this assessment of this movie, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green with sincerity, but ultimately coming up hollow.
This is the second movie I’ve seen this year where a man is walking across America to bring awareness to a cause. The first one was the documentary, “Bastards’ Road,” and that is a profound story of one man struggling with PTSD, and going across country, not just to work through his demons, but to also see how his military brothers (and their families) have handled the emotions they have gone through. “Joe Bell” is based on a true story, as well, but feels like the most trite version of that story, not really dealing with the emotions Joe Bell is going through in any genuine way. Unfortunately, Joe was not able to consult on his story; he was killed in an accident while making his journey to New York from Oregon in 2013.
“Joe Bell” marks the final film credited to author Larry McMurtry and his partner, Diana Ossana, after McMurtry’s death in March. That this pair, who last collaborated on their devastating Oscar-winning screenplay for “Brokeback Mountain,” could not wring more truth out of this true story is baffling to me. I think, in structure, they found the best way to tell Bell’s story about how he tried to wrestle with his son’s suicide after being bullied for being gay, but there’s nothing profound in what we see onscreen except in one scene at a gay bar, where Bell goes and talks to people on his travels, and- after one interaction- finally reveals the truth about his son, as well as the last time we see Jadin alive, where he’s desperately trying to talk to his best friend, but she cannot because she is going out of town. The film begins with scenes of Jadin (Reid Miller) walking with his father, but they don’t really add any weight to Joe’s journey, except when we don’t see Jadin after he admits that his son is dead. His absence weighs heavily on Joe; has he lost sight of what he’s doing this for? That comes back to the most genuine line of the film, which I mentioned in the first paragraph of this review.
I’m not quite sure how “Joe Bell” could have worked better. When McMurtry and Ossana wrote “Brokeback Mountain,” they were able to find painful truth in fiction, something McMurtry was able to do throughout his life, whether it was in “Brokeback” or “Terms of Endearment” or the “Lonesome Dove” series; how were they not able to find it in this true story? I can’t blame the cast- Wahlberg, Miller and Connie Britton as Joe’s wife do what they can with the script, and I don’t know Green’s other work, but I think he’s got a good eye for how this should go. Taken as a whole, “Joe Bell” feels like a phony biopic, and an example of putting Joe Bell ahead of the cause he walked for, and the reason it meant something to him.
