Outside In is a 2018 drama about an ex-con struggling to re-adjust to life in his small town, forming an intense bond with his former high school teacher.
If you’re not a fan of the Duplass Brothers, Jay and Mark, well, you need to change that, the duo behind a number of really innovative and creative films that challenge and push on envelopes. They are producers, directors and actors and have steadily become two of the most reliable filmmakers in the past fifteen years. With sometimes directing collaborator Lynn Shelton‘s provocative Outside In, they are at it again, delivering a sensitive and often raw experience that may have a few tatters but feels all the more true for it.
Chris (Jay Duplass) is coming on forty years old, of which the last twenty have been spent in prison. Just released, he arrives home to faces and family he barely knows, feeling wholly out of place in a wide open world. Few visited him while he was in, though one did stay in touch, his high school English teacher Carol (Edie Falco), who is partially responsible for his early parole. A stranger in his home town, living with his estranged brother Ted (Ben Schwartz), he finds more connection with the older woman, barely containing what is surely a great love for her. The problem is, she’s married with a troubled teen daughter Hildy (Kaitlyn Dever), but is not unaware of his growing affections and is tempted to act on them.
Shelton is a quiet filmmaker, letting simple moments of stillness and calm shape much of these characters. Chris is almost overwhelmed by the imagery around him, from drops of rain on a car window to a horizon that seem limitless. However he’s also forced to jump into a future world where technology and attitudes have changed. He needs work but finds himself more drawn to his old bike, scouting all the hotspots he toured about town two decades prior. These are terrific moments, mostly doled out in silence, allowing us to get under the skin of sorts as Chris struggles to cope.
We also discover that Carol had her own obsessions with Chris, at least in getting him free, something that’s put great strain on her marriage and relationship to Hildy, a plan that has obviously backfired a bit in diluting the former inmate into feelings of romance. Shelton avoids much of the prison-release clichés, rarely letting us in on his past, the story fixed on the present, his crimes not important but his adjustment paramount. Hildy is also unexpected, initially seemingly stuck in the ruts of an angsty teen yet blossoms into a much more complicated character with her own set of issues. Some of the best moments in the film are with she and Chris.
Ultimately, this is about Carol and Chris though and both Duplass and Falco deliver two staggering performances that rattle the whole film. Every line between them is almost unnervingly authentic, creating moments of genuine heartbreak. Carol is haunted by her feelings yet is deeply compelled to save her failing marriage, though the safety of years on the phone with Chris have taken their toll and with him now at her feet, it’s almost unbearable. This is all handled with great care and Shelton treats these people and her audience with respect, the film never contrived or manipulative in where it leads us.
Outside In may not have a big budget or a sweeping narrative but it does have tremendous depth and as an honest human story of change and redemption, is a minor masterpiece.