Master Gardener

Master Gardener supposedly has a contemporary setting. Yet it feels out of time, or belonging to a long gone era. Part of that is the profession of its lead character, and part is Mrs. Haverhill. Both seem like relics from another time and place.

The scale of ideas is big. American social and racial frictions are entertainingly engaged as we work our way towards a shoot-em-up denouement. At 76, more than 20 films into his storied career, Paul Schrader can still deliver a sucker punch.

Paul Schrader wants me to forgive [this character]. No, I don't forgive him. And this is just sloppy filmmaking.

I wish Master Gardener had the wit and courage of Schrader ’s earlier works, instead of relying on some half-baked ideas about masculinity, race and age-gap romance

The weakest of Schrader’s stories foregrounding strong, silent, troubled men.

The atmosphere is initially alluring yet, as the violence begins, this becomes not the film you'd naturally expect or desire — a stiff, stilted drama.

We’re left with an unsatisfyingly weird love story that catches the eye but somehow doesn’t quite make emotional sense, much like Mrs Haverhill’s fantastic but distracting jellyfish wallpaper.

Like many of Schrader’s works it will divide audiences – for those who have enjoyed the late era of the director’s filmography Master Gardener delivers what has come to be expected. Nihilism, optimism, romance – a strange and heady combination.

As a character piece, Schrader has already done this much better before: despite Edgerton's perfectly calibrated performance, Narvel Roth is no Travis Bickle.

Thematically, what MASTER GARDENER espouses – if anything – about redemption is an open question. […] If anything, the film is more interested in probing the tension between those cultivation metaphors and the hate-filled imagery on Narvel’s body.”