On paper, writer-director Owen Moverman’s Time Out of Mind seems like a recipe for well-meaning, exploitative mawkishness. Richard Gere portrays George, a homeless alcoholic who drifts between various men’s shelters, vacant apartments, and bus benches on the streets of New York City. His goals seem to be limited to maintaining a beer buzz and finding a place to sleep undisturbed. George’s daughter Maggie (Jena Malone) tends bar at a local dive, but she wants nothing to do with her father. Eventually, George acquires a hanger-on named Dixon (Ben Vereen), another homeless fellow who is the loquacious yang to George’s reticent yin.
Narrative features about homelessness are notoriously hit-or-miss, with recent examples like The Pursuit of Happyness and Gimme Shelter eschewing realism for hollow bromides. Luckily, Time Out of Mind distinguishes itself from such nonsense in every way. Moverman takes a step back from the forceful drama of The Messenger and Rampart to craft a story that is conspicuously unhurried and elliptical. Immersing George into the buzzing matrix of New York life, he often captures the man’s actions at a distance, allowing snippets of nearby conversations to encroach into the film. Scenes and locations are revisited with slight variations, establishing a sense of dismal déjà vu.
Gere’s performance—taciturn, lethargic, and sour, but with a twinkle of atrophied charisma—is essential, as is Vereen’s complementary but well-rounded portrayal. The real standout, however, is Moverman’s adroit screenplay and patient, vérité directorial approach. George is depicted as a complex, conflicted man: a complacent addict and perpetual screw-up who nonetheless longs to make amends and straighten his life out. The film provides a nuanced rendering of how daunting it can be to crawl out from the gutter, logistically and psychologically. It’s a quietly scathing response to every sanctimonious snarl of “Get a Job!”
Time Out of Mind opens Friday, October 9 at Plaza Frontenac Cinema, 1701 S. Lindbergh.
