Paul Schrader's "The Master Gardener"
A movie review by Dennis D McDonald
The casting in this movie is perfect. The two main characters are believable. For a long time the film provides little backstory which might help to explain their motivations. We just observe them behave and relate to each other. Only slowly do we realize what's going on.
You might say that the film is a mystery of sorts, but that would be selling it short. It's a character study. The people who initially seem to have nothing in common but gradually and in an unexpected ways their relationship evolves.
Author/director Schrader does provide unexpected plot twists as we learn that the Master Gardener isn't just the role he plays as he tends to the world class garden of a mean spirit dowager played with icy perfection by Sigourney Weaver.
For the most part, the pace of the film is calm and deliberate. It does switch occasionally or unexpectedly to sudden displays of punctuating passion or even violence.
Potential viewers are hereby warned that this movie is a character study, not an action film. Nor does it explore more socially relevant topics like Schrader’s superb First Reformed did. If there's a serious message here, perhaps it is that we never really escape the past no much how we try to change it—even if that past is dark.
At the end of the film, the Master Gardner still has his tattoos. And, we have witnessed a beautifully and meticulously photographed and acted character study.
Review copyright 2025 by Dennis D. McDonald
