There’s slim pickings for new movies these days, but Apple TV’s Palmer comes to tide over the wait until new material comes to streaming over the weeks to come. Star Justin Timberlake headlines the first regularly scheduled movie of 2021, and while it’s short of drama it’s full of heart.
Timberlake plays Eddie Palmer, a former high school football star coming back to his northern Louisiana town after 12 years in prison to put his life back together. Moving in with his grandmother, he forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home, and they begin to build new lives as neighbours.
Palmer marks Timberlake’s clearest chase of a prestigious acting part since 2010’s The Social Network, but it’s also his best. His acting has improved over his career, and his performance as Eddie Palmer is best when he’s quiet.
What’s most impressive is how Timberlake has learned to listen: a key quality for any actor but especially so in such a brooding character wanting to change. His Eddie is one that’s interesting to see think and adapt. Kudos too for newcomer Ryder Allen as Sam - Eddie’s listening is as strong as Sam’s many youthful, curious, run-on monologues.
Director Fisher Stevens is best known for his acting career in the 80s and 90s, but his directorial credits are made mostly of filmed theatre and nature documentaries (his last two with Leonardo DiCaprio, the terrific Before the Flood and And We Go Green.)
So how is his transition to fiction? Stevens understands how a story is structured, and he certain knows how to direct a camera. Where his directing falls short is that he’s happy making an ordinary adaptation of the screenplay: none of the ideas on screen are his own. Palmer is exactly what the dialogue describes it to be.
One more thing - this didn’t have to be 14A rough. The most prominent plot is Palmer’s eventual acceptance of Sam’s femininity, even though he’s a boy. Just based on this broad and indifferent aspect of their characters, it would’ve been better as a gentler PG character piece.
Stevens’ is trying to find a gritty, dramatic tone, and that aspiration doesn’t work. There’s an earthiness to this community, and when that subtlety comes through the raw emotion comes through in a more palatable way.
The film is serviceable and the story mildly inspirational. What stops it from being great is that nobody is doing anything special. It’s a fine drama, but without any clear creative choices the prestige and vague attempts at touching the audience’s heart makes this drama just…fine.
Palmer
6 out of 10
14A, 1hr 50mins. Drama.
Directed by Fisher Stevens.
Starring Justin Timberlake, Ryder Allen, Alisha Wainwright, June Squibb and Juno Temple.
Now available to stream on AppleTV+ for subscribers.
