Putty Hill
Putty Hill quietly observes a circle of family and friends as they mourn a young man’s death by overdose.
Directed by Matt Porterfield
(Not Rated)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This small-budget movie from a Baltimore-area filmmaker offers “a stark blast of realism,” said Kyle Smith in the New York Post. Set in a working-class neighborhood just outside that city, the film quietly observes a circle of friends and family as they deal with the glum aftermath of a young man’s untimely death by overdose. The deceased is fictional, but the cast in this “largely improvised” movie are mostly just real-life locals playing themselves. Director Matt Porterfield’s “moody, elliptical” blend of fiction and documentary creates an “impressionistic portrait of a place and its residents,” said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. He’s less interested in telling a story than in plunking us down in an exurban fringe community characterized by “stasis, downward mobility, and lowered expectations.” Putty Hill’s roundabout structure may be “an homage to the dead-end lives of Baltimore’s beleaguered,” said Ella Taylor in NPR.org. It also, however, highlights Porterfield’s “stubborn unwillingness”—and perhaps his inability—to weave his powerful raw materials into a story.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Boeing's Starliner to come home empty
Speed Read Astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore will return on a SpaceX spacecraft in February
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Hunter Biden pleads guilty to tax charges
Speed Read In an unexpected move, President Joe Biden's son pleads guilty to tax fraud and avoids a trial
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Father of alleged Georgia school shooter arrested
Speed Read The 14-year-old's father was arrested in connection with the deaths of two teachers and two students
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published