A Simple Plan

365 Films

Entry #35

A Simple Plan (1998)

Directed by Sam Raimi

A Simple Plan was the beginning of my potentially frustrating habit of seeing films by respected filmmakers that are the least exemplary of their body of work.  And that said films constitute my initial exposure to these personalities.  It began with Martin Scorsese’s Kundun and continued with A Simple Plan, followed by David Lynch’s The Straight Story among others. One of the benefits is that you can go into a film unencumbered by expectations of directorial quirks and predilections.  You are free to observe the story as if in a rapturous conversation with a total stranger.  I’m not sure if that ever happens in real life but it works wonders for my purposes here.  Upon further consideration, A Simple Plan actually shares a strong thematic sensibility with all of Raimi’s horror films.  As in the Evil Dead films, a group of relatively benign innocent human beings stumble onto an evil presence in the woods.  And like Raimi’s most recent horror film, Drag Me To Hell, blind ambition and the desire for upward mobility manifest themselves in increasingly grotesque and violent ways.  Perhaps that is why this is my preferred choice of Raimi’s films, it combines all of his obsessions into one neat little package.  The fact that it showcases career best work from Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, and Billy Bob Thornton especially probably doesn’t hurt either.  What’s most remarkable about this film, however, is the vice like grip Raimi holds on the audience from scene to scene.  What accounts for this is that Raimi never shies away from the lurid, genre elements of the story.  Like the equally bleak and snow-buried, Fargo (Raimi actually sought the advisement of his old pals the Coen Brothers as to how to shoot in snow), A Simple Plan is essentially an endless parade of greedy people doing increasingly stupid and violent things until the story has escalated into a grand tragedy.  Come to think of it, my entire thesis for this entry is faulty.  Instead of the book of the dead or an army of darkness, Raimi’s characters here are inhabited by no less than the malignant spirit of free market capitalism.  It’s no wonder that for his next film, For the Love of the Game he took refuge in America’s other favorite pastime: baseball.  After the two-hour trip to hell that constitutes A Simple Plan, I can’t say I blame him.  Then again, that movie kind of sucks, so I will definitely hold him responsible for that and what happened to Billy Bob Thornton?  His performance here is nothing short of revelatory, showing incredible nuance and dignity to a character that could have easily fallen into the nauseating holy fool caricature.  This is the most heartbreaking and gut wrenching that he’s ever been on screen.  And for those A Simple Plan cultists out there, definitely check out Bill Paxton’s directorial debut Frailty with Matthew McConaughey.  Since we’re in a McConaissance I think you are bound by law to see it right now.