“I want to do something useful and perennial,” Joe Fulton (Bill Sage) tells Alice (Lorraine Farris) in “Where to Land,” hoping for a job as an assistant groundskeeper at a cemetery that only he sees his own qualifications for. The head of the church board appears as bewildered as anyone in his life that he’s mentioned his plans to upon finding himself at 58 years old with a flagging career as a director of romantic comedies and while he drops a compliment of his work from Le Monde (“I have been described as perpetually curious”), Alice isn’t hearing anything in his credentials that would suggest he’s a natural fit for the entry-level position with his experience actually working against him in a number of a ways as he tries to convince otherwise.
Ask any cinephile about “Where to Land” director Hal Hartley’s influence and you’ll no doubt hear him described as “useful” or dare we say, essential when he set a tone for so many indie filmmakers during the ‘90s when he expressed the ironic detachment of a generation and up until relatively recently, he could be called perennial as well, though his latest film marks his first feature since 2014’s “Ned Rifle” completed the trilogy of films he began in 1997 with “Henry Fool.” He leaves little wonder about where he finally found the motivation to return to the big screen when Joe may be the writer/director’s most transparent stand-in to date, searching for purpose as he’s burdened with what will happen to his movies after he passes. More egotistical filmmakers would consider this as a question of legacy, but Hartley in his own inimitable style confronts it with practicality – like Hartley, it is implied that Joe has maintained ownership over all of films and while they have diminishing returns for him as assets, they will continue to have some value to whoever he leaves the business behind to, says his lawyer Laura (Gia Crovatin). With no kids (or seemingly so), this poses a dilemma as he’s led to draw up a will when he remains close to his ex-wife Clara (Edie Falco), while still trying to decide what his relationship to his current girlfriend Muriel (Kim Taff) actually is, though regardless of what decision he’d make, neither seem as if they want the additional income or responsibility.
“Where to Land” opens with archival footage of a ship navigating choppy waters, and the weather is only slightly less inclement when cutting to present day New York where Joe is contemplating his future around the graveyard where he’d like to work. The rain may be modest, but the headwinds around Joe are furious, in part because Hartley hasn’t lost his ear for dizzyingly deft dialogue and the writer/director conjures up a storm around the fictional filmmaker as he wonders what his life has amounted to. Although Hartley maintains the spare, ultramodern aesthetic that’s have given all of his films a cool-to-the-touch appeal, “Where to Land” has the premise of a classic screwball comedy as misconceptions mount over Joe’s sudden desire to make his final wishes legal and his constant trips to the cemetery put Muriel and his niece Veronica (Katelyn Sparks) on edge, particularly when a letter arrives from a local hospital marked “confidential” that neither of the two tempt opening themselves. The addition of a Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern-esque pair of screenwriters named Keith (Jay Lenox) and Mick (Jeremy Hendrik), the latter of whom wonders if Joe is his biological father after a chance encounter, adds an additional layer of confusion to both the story and its place in time as Joe begins to detach from the present to think about where he stands in the whole human spectrum, ultimately consulting with a wisened mentor (Kathleen Chalfant).
Longtime admirers of Hartley’s will no doubt be delighted to see the director really go for it, emphasizing the silliness of trying to contextualize or quantify the meaning of life with an overly dramatic crush of piano keys any time the characters themselves hit a note of discord in a score that the director composed himself to go along with the music of his pleasingly piquant repartee. As has always been the case with his films, the theatricality may bother some and “Where to Land” isn’t concerned at all with nuance in its presentation, but that disregard comes to be seen as a galvanizing sign of liberation as Joe gradually is freed from all he’s holding onto from the past that’s preventing him from appreciating the present and it can be assumed that the person behind the camera is relishing it as well. At a fleet 75 minutes, you’ve got to enjoy “Where to Land” while it lasts as well, but Hartley makes the most of the moment.
“Where to Land” is playing special engagements across the U.S. throughout the fall. A full calendar of theaters and dates is here.