Living isn’t easy, but in “The Motel Life” it feels like an abject burden.
Based on a novel by Willy Vlautin of the same name, “The Motel Life” tells the story of Frank (Emile Hirsch, “Into the Wild”) and Jerry Lee (Stephen Dorff, “Somewhere”) as they navigate the vast and seedy plains of the Midwest.
As kids they ran from home when their mother died from an illness. They jump trains like traveling minstrels, Jerry fails to board a freight car and loses his leg. Dealt another helping of unfortunate circumstances, Jerry admits to Frank that he accidently killed a boy in an automotive accident. The brotherly bond becomes tighter and Frank eventually becomes a devoted keeper.
Tone remains entrenched in a staid atmosphere throughout, never leaving the perspective of misery which the brothers live with. The film is drenched with bleak, washed out palettes of blue and white.
The score is played occasionally on an out-of-tune piano, and like the brothers who are similarly just a little out of tune with the world, both Hirsch and Dorff deliver a tremendous amount of resonant pathos with their distinctly troubled characters.
The narrative is a bit jumbled with bits of fractured plotlines becoming muddled in some of the jagged storytelling. The serious subject matter is tinged with some light elements that become a hindrance.
Frank has the ability to sooth with his penchant for excellent storytelling. He whisks his brother away by telling him about all the fantastical adventures they have, but “The Motel Life” seems more impressed with finding the ability to show this on screen, through some compelling animation vignettes, rather than seeing the effect these stories have on the ones being told.
Detractors aside, “The Motel Life” tells a familiar yarn of life on the run when there was never any option presented otherwise for these two purposeless and vagrant outlaws. The ambient nature of the performances delivered by Hirsch and Dorff are what linger when the dust has settled.
