After far too long I finally sat down with my personal copy of The Waterhole, a film by Ely Mennin, for review. Waterhole is billed as follows:
The Waterhole is the story of Miller, who takes sanctuary in a friend’s bar rather than deal with a failed relationship and pending college graduation. While his two best friends, Jim and Murphy, are taking steps to start new lives, Miller sinks in a world of one-night stands and hangovers, until a friend from his past returns bringing his world crashing down around him.
I have to admit, I had the wrong idea about what the film would be like. Three guys drinking too much in a small town would surely lead to some fateful fatal accident that would be poorly concealed and later revealed by someone who’d captured it all on his/her mobile phone. Nope. The Waterhole is nothing like that. It’s an indie skein about the wild dynamics of relationships between buddies, their women and their dreams.
Ten minutes in, The Waterhole hits you with an “Oh shit!” moment that forces you to settle into your seats and pay attention. Soon after, it’s clear that you’re watching the steady decline of an obviously heartbroken man, whose obliviousness to his inner pain sets him on a path of self destruction. In hindsight, the “oh shit” moment mentioned above is a clear indication of how deeply troubled the main character Miller is, played by Patrick J Adams. No one would go through such lengths if they weren’t hurting badly.
The supporting cast of The Waterhole is sufficiently rounded out by Rebecca Mozo (who has an uncanny resemblance to both Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman), Jade Carter and Matt Stasi. There is a notable performance by Joey Klein who plays Cracker. From his first appearance Cracker appears edgy, off-kilter and almost suicidally psychotic. Klein plays the role like a loose cannon hanging on by a very thin thread and when we finally see him at the end he proves our theories correct. It was a captivating performance.
The Waterhole is a solid indie effort; the dialog was fresh and smart, the locations and production values helped tell the story. Most importantly, I believed each of the characters. Every performance rang true, and that very important in a low budget indie film. To Adams’ credit, he made me feel about Miller the way I feel about most men who mope their way through life: I want to smack them upside the head and say, “cowboy up!” I would have liked Adams to offer up more action/behavior indicative of the character’s downfall, however. In lieu of Miller hitting rock bottom because of his own devices, he indirectly hits the bottom through a friend. While the sequence is shocking, I felt like something was missing because I’d spent so much time with Miller but he wasn’t the initial focus of the breakdown.
In the end Miller has to grow up. Part of growing up means reconciling with his hurt feelings and admitting certain things to himself instead of trying to drink his troubles away. We see that Miller gets it and is on a new path, a path that begins far away from the water hole.
The Waterhole is available on Amazon.com
