A taciturn man who has created a new life and identity is unable to fully escape the consequences of his former life. He keeps his head down. But his attempts to impose order on a disordered world are doomed to fail; past secrets work their way to the surface like a splinter.
It’s a summary that could apply to many of Paul Schrader’s most recent films – certainly First Reformed and The Card Counter. But Schrader’s latest, Master Gardener, starring Joel Edgerton as Narvel, a former white supremacist turned horticulturist, is the weakest of Schrader’s stories foregrounding strong, silent, troubled men. In part this is because of the sluggish pacing. But the clumsily written female characters – Narvel’s employer, the imperious, implausible heiress Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver); Norma’s recovering addict niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) – take the secateurs to any credibility the film might otherwise have mustered.
