"Master Gardener": review

Maya (Quintessa Swindell) and "Narvel" (Joel Edgerton)

I had no idea what to expect going into Paul Schrader's 2022 "Master Gardener." The ads for the film portrayed it as Man with Dark Past Must Confront It, which made me think this might possibly be a boilerplate action thriller about a man living a quiet life who is forced to rely on his mad skilz to survive when his old life comes calling for him—à la Keanu Reeves in his John Wick films, or any of thousands of other action movies in the same vein. What I got instead was a very slowly paced study of a man with a dark and scary past who finds himself in a strange situation, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. If it comes down to the practical question of rewatchability, I'd have to give this film a no.

"Master Gardener" stars Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell, Esai Morales, Eduardo Losan, Victoria Hill, Amy Le, Erika Ashley, and Jared Bankens. It's the story of a quiet gardener with the strange name of Narvel Roth (Edgerton) who works for Norma Haverhill (Weaver), a rich matriarch who owns Gracewood Gardens, an immense property that Roth and his gardening team tend to. As we get to know Roth, we discover that he writes in a journal, mostly about gardening, but occasionally also about darker topics like guns. Mrs. Haverhill and Narvel maintain a sexual relationship, and as time goes on, we find out, through reveals and flashbacks, that Narvel used to be a white supremacist. His body is covered with tattoos of skulls, flames, and swastikas, and because he is a changed man, Narvel hides these symbols under clothing except, obviously, when he's trysting with Mrs. Haverhill, who seems not to mind the tattoos. Coming back into Mrs. Haverhill's life is her grandniece Maya Core (Swindell), an addict whose recently deceased mother was also an addict. Perhaps hoping to provide the young woman with some direction in life, Haverhill places Maya under Narvel's supervision: he is to teach her the trade of gardening. Maya initially doesn't live on the premises; she merely visits to learn from Narvel for one hour a day, then she spends time gardening with Narvel's team members. Things get complicated when Maya develops feelings for the much older Narvel, and Maya's background as an addict catches up with her. Maya manages to coax some information about Narvel's past out of him, and she unsuccessfully tries to seduce him. Mrs. Haverhill, however, misunderstands the situation when she sees Narvel hastily leaving Maya's temporary lodging on the property (she'd been beaten up by a "boyfriend" in her neighborhood) while adjusting his pants. Assuming Narvel and Maya had sex, Mrs. Haverhill expels both of them from her property. The story shifts to Narvel and Maya's life on the road. In the meantime, we learn that Narvel has been in witness protection this entire time, and his real name isn't Narvel at all: it's Norton Rupplea. As a white supremacist who was part of an organization, he had often been tasked with wet work, but when he refused to kill the wife and child of a black target and turned on his own organization, he was placed in protective custody. Maya, who's half-black, discovers Narvel/Norton's tattoos, and the movie goes in unpredictable directions.

Paul Schrader is the guy who gave us the frustrating "First Reformed." You'll recall that, in my review of that movie, I said that most of the film was amazing, but the final reel went totally off the rails and lost me as a viewer. While "Master Gardener" doesn't veer off wildly into surreality, it does stretch plausibility, especially when it comes to the consequences of some of Narvel's violent actions toward the end of the film. I also have to wonder at the choice of the name "Narvel": doesn't that name stick out when you're trying to hide someone in witness protection? Even stranger, there's what appears to be a weird bit of CGI silliness during the sex scene when Maya does finally seduce Narvel out of his clothes. And there's no way to put this delicately, so I'll just say it: the filmmakers mask out Maya's nipples. I had a confusing moment, when the sex scene started, where I thought she was still wearing a shirt because her breasts were perfectly smooth, but no: she was supposed to be naked, but the filmmakers somehow thought the artistic thing to do would be to paint out her nips (unless the young lady really was born without nipples!). I'll say this, though: it gave the scene a hallucinatory quality because I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. I was also unconvinced by the film's ending: it seemed as if it were supposed to end on a happy note, but, true to the metaphor of the garden, the seeds of chaos remain, and happiness is not guaranteed.

The thing that kills the movie is its glacial pacing. This might charitably be called deliberate, or another critic might use the expression slow burn to describe the unfolding of the plot, but the film truly fails to build on any tension despite the potential for tension lying everywhere, like the roots of a particularly pernicious plant waiting to trip someone up. Narvel's journaling, given to us in voiceover, spells out the whole garden-as-metaphor concept: a garden is an expression of hope for the future, but it's also an expression of control, of human will dominating nature. One can easily see how this metaphor is meant to apply to both Narvel's and Maya's lives: Narvel is still contending with his racist, murderous past while Maya is still not free of her drug addiction. There are inner gardens to tend. Ultimately, the movie wants us to think that these two characters will somehow save each other, and in better hands, the story might have evoked more care in me, but the molasses-slow pacing meant that dredging up any emotion was something of a chore.

In the end, I don't think I can recommend this movie. I'm not acquainted with Paul Schrader's work except for the two films of his that I've seen, and both have been disappointments.* I can imagine that there are people who "get" Schrader the way people "get" Wes Anderson (another director I'm very iffy about), but I'm not in that club. "Master Gardener" has some nice garden shots; the quality of the acting is fine, but it's the story that's lacking any real oomph. Give me tension; give me drama; give me something to latch on to. The movie fails in terms of story and direction, and that's hard to forgive.

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*I forgot that Schrader actually has a pretty impressive list of accomplishments in his résumé: he wrote the screenplay for both "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ," among other feats. I never saw "Raging Bull," but I did see and appreciate the Scorsese-directed "Last Temptation," which I thought was a good movie about a Christ who is, ultimately, tempted by domesticity—the shedding of his savior role, and a meditation on "Let this cup pass from me."