It could be said, only half-ironically, that Normal is part of a new normal in the cinematic realm. Director Ben Wheatley’s film falls naturally into the sub-genre of quirky films about small-town middle America, a k a Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and Eddington, usually with cops drawn into dire — if not downright nasty — circumstances.
Part of the basic expressive MO taken on by director Ben Wheatley — known for work in the horror and thriller zones — is the radical contrast of the early “awe shucks,” Mayberry-like blandness of the film’s first third, and the successive waves of evildoing to come. Early on, interim Sheriff Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) deals in small-town banter and neighborly squabbles with the locals, eats donuts, and enjoys the simple pleasures of the homey atmosphere in Normal. “Good people, small problems,” he says, and speaks dismissively of the small fry shenanigans on the job: “I get to say ‘nothing to see here’ all day.”
But there is some major trouble brewing, as the underbelly of this seemingly milquetoast burg is revealed, and the guns and ammo emerge. Like Joaquin Phoenix’s cop in Eddington, Odenkirk transforms from a mild-mannered officer of the peace to a highly armed dispenser of wrathful fury and foe-fighting. And the foes keep expanding. “This shit storm’s only going to get worse,” he rightly surmises.
In the face of extreme danger and aiming to kill his own deputies, a pair of bungling, low-level bank robbers suddenly become more innocent and trustworthy. They become a motley trio amid a crazed town. The film resorts to degrees of cartoonishly grisly violence, from death by knitting needle to the throat to copious shots of explicit bullet-to-the-head style demises. The body count mounts in a town that sold itself out for the yakuza. Most definitely not normal, by most definitions.
Ulysses, who also comes saddled with a sad pre-Normal backstory, is a role tailor-made for Odenkirk and partly self-made, as he worked on the story and script with action specialist Derek Oldstad. Channeling some of his charm-gone-dark character, as seen in his career-defining Better Call Saul series, Odenkirk handily juggles the dark and the light, the unflinchingly badass and the human kindness aspects of this role, along with a dry comic touch.
“I’m never looking for trouble,” he says in a voice-over late in the film. “If it wants you, it will find you, and it can be hard to shake, once it does.”
He is the kind of guy who eagerly snatches a pie in the kitchen of an all-American coffee shop, after a bout of bloody carnage that leaves a restaurant full of deceased bodies. But, yum, the afterglow of pie! It’s a downright Lynchian moment, maybe a tip of the hat to the late, great director of dream-driven cinema.
As Odenkirk’s foil, Lena Headey (a British actress who nails the Minnesotan drawl) seizes the spotlight, with a poignant family connection to the story, and in a Girls Rock — and shoot! — mode of story-propelling action.
In the proper mindset, Normal manages to work up appeal as a blackly comic action romp, qualifying as escapist fare, and good clean fun, with the clean mostly taken out. And there is pie, and all that stands for, in the bargain.
Normal is screening at SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre. For more information, see sbifftheatres.com.
Watch the official trailer here.
