Middle of Nowhere (2012)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Thanks for the memories!

Crappy film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The script is only good as the actors and the actors were above average. They showed passion and emotion through their characterization and was able to present real-life empathy in their situations. I am surprised this movie didn't make it into the box office and if it did, it was purely underrated. The story line also exhibited a common scenario that many families deal with regarding incarceration of loved ones. I can watch this movie multiple times and still feel the realness of the actors' life story. Also, many ladies deal with their husbands and boyfriends behind bars and it's a constant battle with one's self too either rock it out with them or just move on.

The couple involved seem like a typical middle class couple. She is a registered nurse with plans to go to medical school. Her husband - I don't think the film ever mentions his legitimate profession. But he is at the beginning of an eight year sentence in a federal penitentiary for gun running.When we first meet the young couple they are talking in the visiting room at the prison. You can touch and embrace when you first meet, but NO KISSING! She is trying to encourage him. She will put her plans on hold so she can talk to him every night and see him every weekend. She tells him to keep one phrase in his head "five years good time", the shortest sentence he can do if he just stays out of trouble. Since the gun running was his only run in with the law, she figures this is a piece of cake. But it isn't.So much of the film is just the camera pointed at the wife - her face is so expressive you almost don't need words. You see the daily ennui of her life. You see her dealing with her dysfunctional relatives, doing a job she is good at - registered nurse - but wanting more, going through papers she has neatly filed away readying for his release. And then some good news. After just four years there will be a parole hearing. At first their original lawyer says she is not available. The truth is she wants half of the money upfront. This is just like a lawyer. They want to sweep unpleasant confrontations based on capitalism under the rug, but Ruby (the wife) gets the truth out of the lawyer, and gets her to agree to appear at the parole hearing. Ruby manages to scrape together the money the attorney wants.The parole hearing is a disaster. Apparently Ruby's husband Derek has been involved in one assault and is named as the instigator in a second. Then comes what Ruby was not prepared to hear. Derek has been sexually involved with a now fired female guard. We never see or even hear Derek's side of things. His lawyer just keeps mentioning "no charges were ever filed" as Derek's defense. It's artful how the film lets the audience fill in what happened. Here is a middle class guy, with probable minimal street smarts, among men who probably did not get here by dropping out of Sunday school. So his parole hearing is basically civilized people in civilized society measuring Derek's behavior in prison by civilized standards when prison is the law of the jungle.This is where the actress playing Ruby should have won an Academy Award. With just the expression on her face, at the parole hearing, she goes from the optimism of somebody about to greet someone returning from a long journey, to the dazed face of someone who realizes she has endured four years of deferred dreams and celibacy for somebody she might not even know anymore. Her face falls like a cake in an oven. Hey, if Luise Rainer could get Best Actress in 1936 for what amounts to one phone call in "The Great Ziegfeld", what about this?? The next time Ruby and Derek meet - and it is a few weeks - Ruby is a changed woman. She has a harder look on her face, and even a harder looking hairdo. Before she has been all smiles - almost angelic in appearance. Not anymore. What transpired since the parole hearing? What does she tell Derek? I'll let you watch and find out. Highly recommended.

So few people have seen this movie and it's a shame. DuVernay has crafted a perfectly conceived vision for this movie. Almost every choice works together to support both the narrative as well as the construction of the main character. The cinematography may not be exquisite but it is extremely effective, which is the more important of the two. In an early scene in the jail, distance is created so wonderfully between the two characters even though they are so physically close to one another. Most scenes don't really appear dark, but rather lacking in light. Many scenes had me yearning to be able to see more in the frame, perhaps in the same way that the mother wishes to see more of her daughter's old self. The light has gone out in the daughter as well as the frame. The acting is well done and even the child does a good job. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the film is being a lot without being too much. Love, forgiveness, loyalty, and the prison system are all examined from an interesting and complex perspective. And DuVernay includes small moments that have a large impact. When Ruby is hugging Bryan, DuVernay shows his face for just a moment. That one shot adds such a great deal to his character as well as their relationship. Unfortunately, there are a few things i disliked. I liked the music; however, i felt that the way DuVernay used it was a little distracting at times. And while the movie was not best described as slow or sluggish, I would agree that it is meditative and perhaps not in the best way. This film certainly needs moments to breathe, but too many add up. Overall, a great movie that perfectly handles what it was set out to. It may not change your view on the entirety of life, but certainly it will have a profound effect on what you believe loyalty to be and its distinction from blind love.

It is always refreshing to see good indie movies exploring dark themes in a sensitive and almost lyric way. These are, incidentally, the two major strong points of this movie.There are many titles, some rather good ones, exploring incarceration an its effects on the person behind bars. Multiple angles and story lines are explored, almost always from the incarcerated point of view. 'Middle of Nowhere', instead, puts the focus on an accomplished young woman whose life hangs still when her young husband is incarcerated for a long term, and makes the movie about the effects of incarceration on people who are on the outside, supposedly free, but actually suffering by proxy a set of restrictions and struggles that derive from the fact that a loved one or in-law is not present. That is an interesting take on the subject.Nonetheless, the script is just too slow. There are several cogent reasons for a script to be slow, such as character development, parallel narratives - but none of them could possible justify it here. Thus, it becomes very difficult to keep paying attention on what the director had in mind as dozens of minutes are just fillers that, in turn, are juxtaposed with some pivotal scenes that are paradoxically too hurried up.