Independent drama announcing the return of Norton the actor as opposed to Norton the sleepwalking paycheck casher. No sooner is this announced then with the blatant pre-title "Edward Norton in" before announcing any other credits, which I found to be slightly arrogant, nowhere near the hubris of a "Quentin Tarantino presents", but nonetheless an egotistical gesture. To Norton's credit, he does find some of his most heartfelt, subtle, and perceptive work since his compelling material days, through the troubled and mysterious rancher that he plays here. Unfortunately, the "Edward Norton in" aspect does become apparent when all is said and done; clearly this was a repositioning role Norton had staked a lot in (even putting his neck out there to raise hell when the film had trouble getting picked up for distribution) to help give his career a much needed indie boost. Although the performance is uniformly solid, actions described during the latter half of this odd script do tend to take away any serious consideration for the character invested viewers were making up until that point. While things veer from enjoyable, even painfully beautiful and rife with bittersweet sentiment, to uncharacteristically ludicrous with one swift motion, one still never looses sight of the passion Norton and company held out until the ambiguous resolution. It is this moral ambiguity that perhaps defined the film and it's subsequent controversy of not being able to "find a market" with US distributors, but ultimately this grey zone that could have yielded far more fruitful results ends up loosing relevance and potency due to the seemingly lazy transgression of events, tied into an underdeveloped sub-plot.
Review of Down in the Valley
