Gus Van Sant reunites with Matt Damon, who also wrote the script and co-produced with John Krasinkski, for a thoughtful, adult drama about gas prospectors coming to a small, American town.
Steve Butler (Matt Damon), works as a salesman with Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), a crack team from a company who specialise in fracking, extracting natural shale gas by blasting underground drilling beds with water and sand. Steve has just received a promotion, due to his and Sue’s success at persuading smallholders to sign away their land rights in exchange for financial gain.
This time however, they run into trouble, both from the town’s citizens, led by veteran Hal Holbrook, who has done his research into the possible downsides of fracking and environmental activist Dustin, (John Krasinski), a persuasive and charming campaigner who comes armed with tales of woe and destruction from other towns.
The film successfully pits the effects of recession and lack of new industries against environmental gain in a series of intelligent and morally complicated exchanges. Steve and Sue are portrayed, not as the bad guys, but essentially hard-working and decent who believe in what they are doing.
It’s mix of eco-politics and anti-corporate rhetoric alongside a romantic melodrama (Steve falls for the local schoolteacher, Alice) will not be to everyone’s taste and Van Sant’s tone is similar to that displayed in Good Will Hunting and his other more populist dramas (rather than the experiments of Elephant andLast Days), but this is well-made, intelligent, issue-lead drama for an up-market audience.
