“A Little Prayer” opens as the camera slowly tracks up a deserted, tree-lined suburban street in North Carolina. Coming from somewhere in the distance, a woman is heard singing a hymn in the crisp, early morning air.
This is the deceptively gentle opening to a movie about a family in deep disarray. But the writer-director, Angus MacLachlan – he wrote the script for the genial Amy Adams indie hit “Junebug” – is not one to exploit turmoil. He understands that people in distress are deserving of our fullest understanding.
MacLachlan’s low-key style is perfectly suited to his lead actor, David Strathairn, whose delicate, nuanced underplaying has graced many a film. Strathairn plays Bill, the type of man often described as a “pillar of his community.” A churchgoing Vietnam vet who regularly meets up with his VFW buddies, he runs a sheet metal company outside Winston-Salem and dotes on his equally doting wife, Venida (Celia Weston). Living next door is their son David (Will Pullen) – an Afghan war vet with PTSD issues whom Bill has brought into the family business – and his outwardly sunny wife, Tammy (Jane Levy).
Why We Wrote This
Can a family facing disarray move forward? The new movie “A Little Prayer” offers insight and humor, leading to a touching closing scene that our critic says moved him more than anything he’s seen all year.
Tammy is such a convivial and welcoming presence around Bill and Venida that she could easily be mistaken for their daughter and not their daughter-in-law. One of the loveliest scenes in the movie comes early on, when she and Bill walk the early morning streets trying to figure out where the hymn singing is coming from. It’s a sweet, amiable amble that reveals much about how they value each other.
Their emotional bond is crucial to the film’s cumulative power. When Bill finds out that David is having an affair with Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco), the company receptionist, his highest worry is how to protect his daughter-in-law.
An added complication is that David’s frazzled sister Patti (Anna Camp), with her young daughter Hadley (Billie Roy), have decamped to her parents’ home after leaving her layabout husband. This is not the first time she has done this, as Venida’s eye rolls make clear. Bill is pushing for a lawyer to settle Patti’s situation once and for all. Venida’s attitude toward both of her errant children is more hands off. Let them make their own mistakes.
Bill doesn’t come across as unyielding, and there are hints that his own past is checkered. It’s just that he wants the people he loves most in life to be happy. It affronts his sense of justice that they are not. The small-town Southern life satisfies his need for a structured existence. When that structure frays, he blames himself. His blame is mostly baseless, but it’s the only way he knows to make sense of things.
MacLachlan gives all of the characters their due. Our first impressions of them are purposefully misleading: David affects a carefree air, Patti comes across as a blustery eccentric, Narcedalia has a brisk efficiency, and Venida at times could fit right into a “Golden Girls” episode.
All these facades mask a deeper reality. This is especially true of Bill and, most obviously, Tammy, in Levy’s towering, extraordinarily subtle performance. Coming from a sheltered background, Tammy is not nearly as savvy as these others. Her perplexity at how to rescue herself from sadness is the film’s most affecting aspect.
Seemingly the most frail, Tammy emerges as the strongest of the bunch. Like Bill, she recognizes that the people you love the most are also capable of breaking your heart, and she has the courage to forgive them. She knows what she must do to survive and move on.
Up until its final scene, I thought “A Little Prayer” was an entirely decent and poignant piece of work. But its closing scene between Bill and Tammy, those two self-described kindred spirits, moved me more than anything I’ve seen all year. It’s an infinitely touching expression of the love that one human being can have for another.
Peter Rainer is the Monitor’s film critic. “A Little Prayer” opens in theaters Aug. 29. It is rated R for language.
