STONE (2010)
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Stone is the movie of two men on opposite sides of the law and their journey toward redemption and moral bankruptcy. Edward Norton plays Gerald “Stone” Creeson, up for parole 8 years into a 10-15 year sentence for accessory to murder and arson involving his grandparents. Robert DeNiro plays Jack Mabry, the Parole Officer who is responsible for seeing if Stone deserves to be paroled.
The first scene in the film takes place during the late 1960’s, and shows a younger Mabry sitting in front of a TV watching golf and drinking. His wife, Madylyn enters the room and musters the strength to tell Jack she has had it with him. Jack runs upstairs and holds their daughter out of a window and threatens to drop her if Madylyn ever thinks of leaving him again. This scene serves to show the audience that Jack has demons and it was probably at this moment when he lost his way.
Now in present day Stone is marched into Mabry’s office, hair in corn rows and speaking with a scratchy southern “wigger” accent. Norton does a great job of embodying this character. Their first meeting is one of annoyance and frustration. Jack is close to retirement and is just seeing his current cases through, while Stone is tired of having to keep talking about his crimes and such again and again in order to just be denied parole. Mabry makes it known that he is the only “door” that Stone may walk through. So the two men go about having conversations that seem more like therapy sessions than interviews.
Milla Jovovich plays Lucetta Creeson, Stone’s wife of nine years. She is innocent yet has a dark side which Milla skillfully plays. Stone puts her up to getting a hold of Jack and trying to “convince” him that he should be paroled. She immediately sets out to do this, using her sweet tone and understated sexuality. Mabry , at first, resists her but soon finds himself meeting with her privately and ultimately engaging in an affair.
During this game of cat and mouse, Stone starts to have an epiphany about God, about life and about his crimes. He starts reading up and soon begins to evolve spiritually. This evolution plays against Jack’s moral decline as he cheats on his wife and continues to ignore her more and more.
The whole film is set in the Bible Belt and throughout the film there is religious radio call in chatter used as a sort of random narration. At one point Jack sits with the Pastor and tells him he should just shoot him. Jack is unhappy and always has been, but lately he is starting to feel like his actions, his retirement and Stone are making him feel cornered.
So the film creates the spiritual evolution of a criminal while it shows the spiritual decline and moral bankruptcy of the non-criminal. And although Stone may have used his wife to help secure his release, his desire changes as his spiritual growth does. This change leaves Jack suspicious and Lucetta confused.
Stone gets his parole and Jack retires, but is so lost and confused that he drunkenly hits on his female replacement and when she politely refuses he calls her a cunt. Jack leaves the bar where his retirement celebration is happening and he finds Stone. Jack puts a gun up to Stone’s jaw, but Stone says, “You won’t do it.” Jack wants to, and the scene shows just how far gone Jack is, but Jack doesn’t do it. He goes back home.
Once back home Jack is awaken in the middle of the night to a fire consuming his home. He wakes up his wife and the two take refuge outside. Jack believes that Stone did this, but Madylyn claims it was an act of God, but the suggestion her is that she’s had enough and she set the fire as a way to free herself from Jack and his isolating of her soul.
The film ends with Stone a changed man as is Madylyn a changed woman, but Jack and Lucetta both seem alone and lost. The direct connotation here is that Stone and Madylyn believe in God and have faith whereas Jack and Lucetta do not and are lost souls.
The advertising for this film called it a taught thriller, and cat and mouse game, which it is not. Stone is not really playing Jack for a fool as is suggested by other film synopsis of STONE. He may have started out that way, but the film quickly isn’t about that, it’s truly about discovering God and that if you believe then you will be saved. The film is slow, and there is almost zero tension, but the three stars give fine if not restrained performances. The message here is not even remotely subtle and the film suffers a bit because of that. Part of the problem with Stone, just like with DeNiro’s 2009 film “Everybody’s Fine” is that the two films are advertised as being a type of movie they are not. Regardless of that Stone is a somewhat interesting character study about two men heading in different directions spiritually.
GRADE: B-
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