Master Gardener

Narvel Roth is the chief horticulturist at a beautiful estate owned by a wealthy dowager, and he is devoted to maintaining its expansive botanical grounds. But when he's asked to take on his employer’s troubled great-niece as an apprentice, his idyllic and meticulously cultivated life is thrown into chaos, bringing dark secrets from his own past into the sunlight.

Writer/director Paul Schrader returns once again to his familiar Taxi Driver riff on “God’s lonely man,” making Master Gardener the third film in his accidental trilogy about the redemption of sad and solitary men with dark pasts, after First Reformed and The Card Counter.

The estate the film is set on feels like a Southern Plantation somewhere on the Hudson River Valley, which makes sense as the movie was shot in both New Orleans and New York. The place is owned by Norma Haverhill, a woman hailing from somewhere between Sunset Boulevard and Tara, a fantastic performance that hints at the type of person who is prone to “having spells” that require laudanum for relief, and also one who owns an extensive private collection of WW2 artifacts, but only from one specific army in particular. Meanwhile, Narvel, taciturn and tightly controlled, passionate about his job, is an obvious master who walks the grounds as if it has always been his world, something he was born to do, and has always wanted.

But it turns out, this is not true.

I don’t want to delve into Narvel’s backstory too much, as that’s a big part of the story, but those of us who live in this modern day world, and actually pay attention to it, will most likely pick up early on that these dark secrets of his are related to the reason why he also wears long sleeves and buttons his collars all the way up.

Anyway, it’s after Miss Haverhill magnanimously announces that Narvel will professionally look after her grand-niece, a young woman named Maya who has hit a rough patch due to “lifestyle issues,” that this quiet life of pleasant days in the garden planning charity flowers shows crumbles. Narvel and Maya end up together, which the people in their lives do not approve of, especially Maya’s drug dealer boyfriend, but also Miss Haverhill. The Drug Dealer is just an asshole who considers Maya to be his property, an outlet for Narvel to demonstrate his “particular set of skills,” but Miss Haverhill is very bitter about it, and not just because of jealousy, it’s also implied that Miss Haverhill doesn’t approve of their union due to the fact that Maya is biracial, although this never really comes to a head.

And that’s basically the problem with the film.

The film seems to treat this particular attitude/belief as something more like a disappointing quirk, like coughing without covering one’s mouth, than an ugly moral failing and indication of a rotted soul. It’s treated as if it is something that is best left ignored, in lieu of the person’s myriad “better” qualities, and the consideration for the weight of past history on their relationship.

At one point, after the garden is vandalized, Narvel says, "plants rejuvenate, that's what they do. Some people do, also." This one line is the movie’s whole theme, that people, like the garden Narvel takes care of, are multi-faceted, that they can grow, and change. And at this point, I am exhausted by this particular theme. Mostly because it seems like there is only ever one particular type of person who seems to benefit from this oh-so-noble story of redemption, this expansive exploration of the deeper soul of a person who is, after all, just a human being like the rest of us, a person the rest of us would probably dismiss out of hand, and simply for their having held “different” views from us. This then turns the whole thing into an indictment of us, the audience that holds a certain opposite opinion from the characters. It becomes an indictment of how “elitist” we all are, how we “rush to judge” these otherwise “good” people, which just… drives me fucking mad, because it’s always like: “Hey, sure they did some bad stuff once or twice, or for years, and have never even considered actually apologizing,  but look… they’re super sad now, so so sad, look how sad they are!” There’s never any actual confrontation of sins in these stories, let alone any actual contrition, because that’s never the point, the point is only ever redemption.

So, why? Why do some people seem to believe that this type of person always deserves their redemption?

Well, we all know why, right?

And this isn’t to say that the film is bad either, it’s not. It’s dreamy and elegant, deceptively simple, a little pulpy too, and the core three performances are great. There’s a lot to admire here, but ultimately, all I’m left with is a single question…

Why?

Why do we need this particular redemptive story featuring this particular hero yet again? And I’m not just talking about the fact that it’s an “arty” twist on the familiar Neeson cis-het male fantasy wish fulfillment, I’m asking why does it have to center on this particular, and sadly all too common, type of person? Why do we need so many variations of this same story these days? Why are certain people seemingly so invested in putting it front and center? What issues are they so intent on litigating in the court of public opinion that the redemption of this kind of person seemingly has to pop up at every opportunity in modern American pop culture now? Why?

I know why, but I’m asking, because you should be asking too.

Because the fact is, most people of a certain demographic probably don’t notice this shit at all, or if they ever do (or if they do now upon reading this) then they’re probably ready with an excuse, one specific to each instance because, after all, in this particular case, they seem sincere and nice, so don’t they deserve that redemption? All while never seeming to realize that they’re always ready to excuse every specific case…

For me, the problem isn’t the idea of redemption itself, and it’s not that I don’t believe that people like this can change, it’s that I know that most of them won’t, not because they can’t, but because they refuse to. This is their choice, and it’s the most common choice, so the problem is, why are we pushing this particular piece of fiction so much? What’s the agenda, whether deliberate or not, what’s the agenda? Why? Like I said, I know why, but still…

It’s exhausting, man. The excuses. It’s just fucking exhausting.