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The Weight Matches Thrilling Grit with Endurance and Craft

One of the best segments from a mainstream TV interview in recent years has to be when Ethan Hawke showed up on Jimmy Kimmel’s show (incidentally the night after he came back from that brief pull off the air) and spent the majority of his time speaking praises from the heart to Robert Redford, who had passed away a few weeks before. It was a great mix of tribute, personal anecdote, and education on just what kind of a legacy -as an artist and as a human being- that Redford left behind. Hawke clearly was a big fan, as he has expressed in other contexts through the years. And so I know he would take it as a great compliment that his performance in The Weight channels the spirit of Redford more than anything else he has done.
Certainly it feels like the kind of movie that might have come out during the era of Redford’s height. Director Padraic McKinley articulates well that flavour of 70s grit through a style and a premise descended from rugged survivalist thrillers like John Boorman’s Deliverance and especially William Friedkin’s Sorcerer to which the movie at times nearly qualifies as an unofficial remake. The kind of film where nothing about it seems polished, where the world is equal parts invigorating and overwhelming, where sheer endurance is its own stake, and where the performances are grounded and disciplined and deeply methodical. We have come around to that kind of a film being radical again, and it is awesome to see.
The Weight is set in 1933 in the Pacific Northwest. Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a war veteran turned mechanic and struggling single father. After being evicted from his home and getting into a back-alley brawl over his daughter Penny’s safety with -among others- a cop, Murphy is arrested and sent to a work camp while Penny is sent to a home, where after a length of stay shorter than his sentence, she will be put up for adoption. At the camp, he demonstrates a unique drive and tenacity over certain seemingly impossible tasks, and he is befriended by the warden Clancy (Russell Crowe), who sympathizes with his conundrum. So Clancy arranges a way for Murphy to get out of his sentence early and retain custody of Penny by hiring him and a few other cons of his choosing to move a cache of gold bars -supposedly for the government- from a mine and through the dangerous wilderness to a predetermined checkpoint.
Escorted by a couple of the mine’s enforcers and accompanied by a strong-willed, experienced Indigenous woman Anna (Julia Jones), this is a viscerally harsh and trying journey and it looks it. McKinley does not skimp on the toil of it all, framing his characters against a deep and unforgiving climate with any number of perils to both the travelers and the gold. Appropriately to the title, the weight of this gold is emphasized -the major hurdle of the whole expedition. A particularly intense set-piece involves the team having to cross a very unstable rope bridge which will not the support the gold. They are left having to toss the bricks one at a time to Murphy in the middle, who needs to catch each one before tossing them to the other side -all while avoiding losing his own balance. Later they need to construct a raft to ferry the gold across rushing rapids careful not to be swept away themselves. All of this real, tangible tension, emphasized by the clear physical endurance of the actors, is utterly gripping. And that’s without factoring in other dangers they may face. They come across an interloper one night who joins their fire -untrustworthy in his designs should he learn about the gold. But then, this crew itself may not entirely be trustworthy.
McKinley assembles for this movie a rich, intriguing group of character actors who perfectly fit the mode of the story. Of particular note are Austin Amelio as Rankin and Avi Nash as Singh, two of Murphy’s fellow inmates who are excellent contrasts with charisma that just dominates the screen whenever the camera fixates on them. George Burgess, a former rugby player, is legitimately menacing as the tougher of the goon escorts, and Crowe -though he has limited screen-time- gives a performance of raw power and withheld viciousness distinct from anything else I’ve seen from him. Jones stands out among all of them though, needing no persuasion of her power and grit -especially during a sober conversation with Murphy on her resistance to white supremacy and escape from a residential school. Hawke fully carries the film though in one of the most intensive performances he has ever given. The toll wears deep on his sharp expression and wizened muscles, but the glint of a just and honest man is always there beneath the surface. The weight of his determination and moral core as much as the difficulty of the excursion is quite palpable as he is tried and battered by the circumstances. A performance of fierce humanity, sharp while brutish -perhaps among his finest.
There is a rugged atmosphere to The Weight as it deals in very staid but relevant themes on masculinity and greed -Murphy immune to the toxic elements of either. Murphy’s relative stoicism through the job is noteworthy against the burliness and crassness of the men in charge. He is framed by a kind of gray stoniness, worn down somewhat but not diminished in his focus. And he is not a lone wolf, depending very heavily on and trusting his allies. There is some great symbolism wrapped up in a scene where after an injury, one of his fingers swells around his wedding ring and though he endeavours to cut the ring off, Anna manages to -through a simple though painful method get the ring off intact while salvaging his finger. Murphy later returns such kindness, his bond with her and the men he brings on the job a quiet though integral side of the mission.
McKinley shoots most of the film in these untamed locations and perhaps under natural lighting, instigating a marvel of execution like we rarely get to see in a movie these days. And naturally it heightens the tension considerably. The filmmaking is very measured, McKinley dwelling in certain beats -letting the harsh elegance of nature take a starring role or lingering with a mood- but then in other moments will choose to shock; and each of these techniques is employed sharply in the action and editing -the bridge scene and a late-film car chase scene being the strongest and a couple of the most enthralling movie sequences of the year. The score, by Shelby and Laitham Gaines (Shelby also co-wrote the film), reflects too the mood and tenets of this murky climate and air of moral compromise, accentuating the foreboding shadiness of the whole enterprise and how it impresses on Murphy.
It’s no surprise that a movie called The Weight has a considerable heaviness to it. McKinley and Hawke ensure you feel every bit of that toll and what it’ll mean when the burden is lifted, should Murphy prevail and rescue his daughter. It’s an exceedingly clever movie, with a script that might have been found in a vault somewhere, devoid of trope or usual artifice. A rather exhilarating adventure of determination, resourcefulness, and toughness matched by moral clarity, and seeped in vivid performance and ambitious direction. A weight that is carried with admirable ease.

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