Ned Rifle

Aubrey Plaza and Liam Aiken in Ned Rifle

Hal Hartley's Ned Rifle is a welcome return to form by the 90s Indie stalwart. A lean mean film machine that clocks in at 84 minutes, Ned Rifle is the third film in the director's "Henry Fool" trilogy. It is expertly cut and directed. Hartley's post-ironic, deadpan style has always been an acquired taste, but his touch here is so assured that Ned Rifle ranks with his best films: Trust, Simple Men, and Henry Fool. 

Hartley  has always been adept with actors and Ned Rifle is teeming with smart performances by such distinguished members of the Hartley stock company as Parker Posey, Martin Donovan, James Urbaniak, Karen Silas, Thomas Jay Ryan, and Liam Aiken. Hartley newcomer Aubrey Plaza fits in nicely whether lolling seductively on a bed or demolishing badly conceived philosophical paradigms. The dialogue is a treat, both learned and tart.

What particularly piqued my interest in the film was its spiritual dimension. Hartley still has plenty of  post-ironic vinegar in him, witness Ms. Plaza's wry take on the "coffee product" in a roadside convenience store, but his decision to regard his protagonist's religious dilemmas seriously is a sign of artistic growth. Ned Rifle is a Dostoyevskian figure whose struggles with the sacred and the profane brand him a modern day Raskolnikov. 

Another link to the past is Ned Rifle's quoting of a Robert Bresson title when asked, by his mother, what path he will follow, "The devil's, probably", he replies. Bresson has his characters struggle between their spiritual aspiration and material desires, albeit with a Marxist tang that was anathema to Dostoyevsky. Bresson twice filmed adaptations of batty Fyodor: "White Nights" as Four Nights of a Dreamer and Une Femme Douce. Nonetheless, Ned Rifle is a treat on its own terms as crisp modern cinema. (5/25/16)