Rudderless

William H. Macy's first film as director is built around one fact withheld from the audience. Billy Crudup plays Sam, a man whose life came apart after his son died in a school shooting, who quit his job and now lives on a boat. When he finds recordings among the boy's belongings and starts playing the songs, his grief finally acquires a shape, and he forms a band with a young musician played by Anton Yelchin. Until the third act everyone honours the silent arrangement, Sam included. Then it emerges that Josh was not among the dead but was the shooter. From that point the film refuses the easy consolation available to it: the town's fury is justified, the father's mourning is real, and the two do not reconcile. The songs were written for the film and Crudup and Yelchin performed them live on set. When it screened at Sundance in 2014 critics split over exactly this double structure, some calling it a narrative trick, others the only honest move the film makes. Who it is for: viewers who like healing-through-music stories but can take an uncomfortable question with them. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by a school shooting being used as the engine of an emotional drama.