American writer-director Ramin Bahrani specialises in low-key realist drama rooted in everyday economics: his recent 99 Homes was a trenchant take on the US mortgage crisis. But he’s on minor form in his previous film, At Any Price, made in 2012 and belatedly getting a limited UK release.
This Iowa-set story is a downbeat affair demonstrating that today’s rural life is in thrall to corporate values and the pressures of the GM industry. Dennis Quaid plays a fiercely competitive farmer and seed salesman, Zac Efron his rebellious stock car racer son. While Efron pulls off his role with unfussy grace, Quaid rather overplays his rhetoric-spouting midwest Willy Loman. It’s an honest, grown-up, slightly earnest slice of rolled-sleeves Americana – something like the cinematic equivalent of a Steve Earle album.
