Battlecreek is a drama about a young man with a rare skin disease that has kept him under the close watch of his fiery mother, who has sheltered him his entire life.
There’s a lot that looks familiar in director Alison Eastwood‘s sultry romantic drama Battlecreek, with its backwoods southern setting, cast of eccentrics, and a mysterious girl come riding into town. Fact is, the film’s chuggy start and purposeful molasses pace are but diversions from the real truth, that while this might look like a cliché-ridden romance on the run, is anything but.
In a small hideaway town in the middle of nowhere, Henry (Bill Skarsgård), a young man still living with his mother Tallulah (Paula Malcomson), is an aspiring artist, painting beautiful murals on the walls. He’s got a skin condition that keeps him active only at night, already scarred from a childhood incident in the sun. He works at the local auto mechanic and gas station, run by his father’s old partner Arthur (Delroy Lindo), though they don’t have gas anymore. It’s a quiet life. One day, in comes Alison (Claire Van Der Boom), a young woman in an overheated car, a look of desperation in her eyes. It’s gonna take days to fix, so she gets a job at the diner to pay the bills, and as this is where Henry spends much of his time, the two soon develop a relationship, though her past soon catches up with her.
What Eastwood does best with Battlecreek is keep it low, feeling very much like a filmed stage play with ambient background music and lots of dialogue. Henry is at the center of a world that doesn’t necessarily revolve around him, but as he is restricted so closely to his routines, encounters the same people and places every day, smothered by a mother savaged by guilt who shelters him and the night owl locals who all take to being his friend. Written by Anthea Anka, the story feels loose and without direction for a long time, steering its audience into a lull as it slowly lays down the dots to be connected later, jarringly shifting everything we expect.
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There’s good support here from Lindo, whose old time jazz fan mechanic is himself a man of ambitions and secrets. Lindo is always a strong presence and is so here, grounding one corner of this story with an emotionally satisfying turn. Dana Powell as Melinda, the diner’s head waitress is also very good, avoiding much of the tropes a character like her might typically come dressed as, bringing a lot of heart into the part. Skarsgård does well too, working hard to be pitiful yet strong, while Van Der Boom offers a mostly convincing spin that sees a lot of transformation.
Eastwood’s decidedly slow-burn fuse to a big stack of boom is an investment, the story devoid of any real action beats, restricted to, at last until the final harrowing moments, verbal conflicts. It doesn’t always compel like is should, with several exchanges falling flat or in some cases forced. Still, this is a story about characters and for much of it, works as it should, the relationships authentic and the ending worth the wait.