Scott Glenn is the heart and soul of Hank Bedford’s Eugene the Marine.
A combination of psychological thriller, giallo mystery and hallmark movie, it’s a tone-shifting oddity but a huge amount of fun, all anchored around the performance of the octogenarian actor. The film screened as the opening gala presentation at this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival and the festival have co-ordinated a celebration of Glenn’s career in their ‘tribute’ strand to go alongside this newer work. Always eminently watchable, here he brings a real grounding and sense of fun to retired marine, Gene – even as the genres and images of Bedford’s bold vision eddy about him.
We meet Gene living a fairly unfussy life to a clearly regimented schedule. He wakes, he works out, his does his daily sudoku, he visits the bank to withdraw cash, he tends the garden of his dearly departed wife. He can be crotchety but mostly seems affable and approachable, striking up easy friendships with a young girl working at the computer store, Parks (Shioli Kutsuna), and a barista at a coffee shop, Trevor (Charlie Ferguson) despite their age differences. However, Gene’s relationship with his son Andrew (Jeremy Bobb) is far more strained. Andrew seems primarily preoccupied with shuffling Gene away into assisted living so that he and his sisters – both of whom have long been estranged from Gene – can sell their family home and pocket some inheritance money early. Andrew’s smarmy real estate agent, Jackie (Jim Gaffigan) has a buyer lined up and Gene’s intransigence is making things difficult. Meanwhile, to connect better with his granddaughter Becca (Delaney Quinn), Gene begins dabbling into technology, making new friends and re-connecting with old ones.
The crux of Eugene the Marine is this push and pull between his son’s desire to land his inheritance and stuff Gene away in a fusty, old, gated community somewhere, and Gene’s sudden desire not to go so quietly into the night. Andrew feels that Gene is losing his grip on reality – evidenced by the holes he keeps drilling in the walls when he hears things. Bedford leans into the disorientating potential of Gene’s advanced years, inserted almost psychedelic interludes that suggest Andrew might not be entirely wrong. Colour floods and smash cuts invoke an almost giallo aesthetic, and that’s before a masked killer in black gloves begins disappearing Gene’s new friends. Beford and Cesare Gagliadoni
Bedford leans into the genre-mashing nature of this, allowing almost woozy swings between heartfelt moments of friendship and connection and arthouse horror vibes. Frances (Annette O’Toole) is a great example – and old friend of Gene’s who he connects with on Facebook, but who immediately asks him for money, opening up the possibility of Gene being taken advantage of on multiple fronts. “I know ambushes” she says at one point, fostering its own sense of unease, particularly when the police being sniffing around Eugene himself as the epicentre of the recent disappearances.
All shot on Super 16mm, the film is beautiful to behold; the celluloid brings a depth of colour that makes things really pop – whether that’s the lush red roses in Gene’s garden or the cool blue lighting that floods the room during a particularly wild party thrown at his house. The sumptuous visuals chime perfectly with the films somewhat retro stylings and atmosphere. While evidently placed in a contemporary setting – Becca’s dismissal of Facebook as something old people use being a perfect indicator – it could broadly be set in the decades from which the film takes many of its cues. Described as a horror film in certain promotional materials, it is more tonally ambiguous than that but does then fully embrace that side of its personality with a grand guignol finale that both comes out of left field and makes perfect sense. The cutaways to a snake regularly seen slithering through the grass of Gene’s garden create a sense of highly symbolic tension that Bedford is keen not to wimp out on, and he most certainly does not.
Whether or not Eugene the Marine’s particular cocktail will be to wider audiences tastes remains to be seen, but if you can tune in to its wavelength it’s a fabulously enjoyable ride – one that makes perfect sense as the curtain raiser for this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival.
Director: Hank Bedford
Cast: Scott Glenn, Annette O’Toole, Shioli Kutsuna, Jeremy Bobb, Jim Gaffigan, Delaney Quinn, Charlie Ferguson, Yesly Dimate, Joe Ando-Hirsh
Screenplay: Hank Bedford, Cesare Gagliardoni
Producers: Barbara Bedford, Hank Bedford, Henry Bedford, Cesare Gagliadoni, Patrice Innocenti, Anita Modak-Truran, Lisa Reneau, Stephen Vincent
Cinematography: Derek Howard, Ksusha Genenfeld
Editing: Brian Miele
Music: Angela Aki, Hajime Kawauchi
Costume: David Tabbert
Production companies: Concourse Media, Graham Avenue Productions (USA)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival (Opening Gala)
In English
88 minutes
