Most of us would say we’re “at a loss for words” when senseless tragedy strikes. We try to use words anyhow — to comfort, to explain, to process, to apologize. It’s a human impulse. But it’s insufficient, and can harm as much as it helps.
That insufficiency of language is the stealth subject of “Eric LaRue,” the feature directorial debut of Michael Shannon. Stealth, because its premise is a bit of a misdirect. Like last year’s “Ghostlight,” it’s a gut-punching indie drama borne out of the Chicago theater scene. The playwright Brett Neveu adapted it from his play by the same name, produced in 2002 at A Red Orchid Theater, of which Shannon is a founding member. Writers who come from theater tend to evince a keen understanding of how, in talking to one another, we reveal and conceal what’s inside of us — and that’s at the core of Neveu’s script.
But that premise, it’s a tough one to sit down and watch: Janice LaRue (a remarkable Judy Greer, in a lead role at last) is the mother of a school shooter. Her teenage son, Eric, is in prison, and she is trying to put her life back together, or at least figure out if that’s something she wants to do.
Her husband Ron (Alexander Skarsgard, sporting an admirably off-putting arrangement of facial hair) is not helping: he’s eager to move on from the incident, and is making headway, thanks to his overly friendly colleague Lisa (Alison Pill). She’s convinced him to join to her church, an evangelical congregation pastored by the imperious Bill Verne (Tracy Letts), who instructs Ron to act like the head of his household and tell Janice how things will go in their home.
Janice is not interested, either in being told what to do or in Ron’s new church family, and not really interested in Ron at this point, either. She’s still attending their less trendy Presbyterian church, pastored by the well-meaning but blundering Steve Calhan (Paul Sparks), who tries to counsel her in his office but doesn’t have many helpful things to say.
Because, what can you say in a situation like this? “Eric LaRue” is a title meant ironically: it’s about a person we don’t even see till the very end. Instead, most of the film revolves around the two parents and their two churches, both of which are pastored by men intent on setting up a meeting between Janice and the mothers of the three murdered boys. Does their eagerness have to do with wanting to help, or wanting to be seen helping, or some third, less definable thing?
It’s hard to tell, on purpose. In fact, everyone’s motivations seem ambiguous, which makes every interaction oddly awkward and stilted. The images and editing, too, feel slow and often stagy, at times distracting. That can render “Eric LaRue” kind of difficult to watch — often people speak as if they’re repeating lines they’re hearing through an earpiece — and there are many awkward pauses and interactions that seem unfinished and strange.
Eventually I settled into the film’s rhythms, once I realized it was based on a play, and it started to make sense. There’s a seemingly deliberate theatricality to it, and that feeling of characters repeating lines they’ve been told to say — I think it’s purposeful. In the wake of the unspeakable, we speak things we’ve heard people say before: that this is God’s plan, that there’s a reason for everything, that nobody is at fault, that someone is to blame. It doesn’t matter how accurate the lines are, or how insufficient. We repeat them because we’re desperate to fill those unpleasant silences.
A great deal of “Eric LaRue” has to do specifically with words that get used in religious contexts so often they become emptied of meaning, even for the faithful — jargon that sounds foreign from the outside and flows off the tongue thoughtlessly inside the community. For those with experience in what is sometimes called “Christianese,” the movie will likely have special resonance. It’s a movie that’s at least half about spiritual bypass, the practice of papering over real trauma with religious ideas and rituals that keep the pain at bay and avoid facing difficult truths. Janice can spot it, and finds it horrendous, but doesn’t know where else to turn.
Yet you don’t have to be embedded in that subculture to find this movie jarring. Everyone, religious or not, has something they are trying to avoid thinking about, and we all have different ways of dealing with it. As “Eric LaRue” starts barreling toward an upsetting conclusion, you start to wonder about everything that’s happened earlier in the movie, about what went unsaid and now refuses to stay quiet.
Sometimes our darkest thoughts get pushed into the background. And sometimes they refuse to stay unsaid.
Eric LaRue
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters.
Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson
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