295.
Stillwater
6.5/10
Stillwater is a crime drama and stars Matt Damon and an unemployed oil-rig worker who is on a path to free his daughter, who is convicted of a murder that she pleads her innocence. This movie looks extremely gritty and low budget so to find out that the money spent was $20 million, most of that is surely paying Damon's wage. If you're unaware of the Amanda Knox story, I suggest having a quick read as this movie is loosely based around those true events. Safe to say Know wasn't happy about this movie and denounced it through her Twitter account regarding the fact that they profiteered from her experiences, but we'll touch on that towards the end.
The movie begins and revolves mostly around Bill Baker, played by Matt Damon who is heading out to Marseille to visit his daughter who is halfway through her prison sentence for murdering her roommate and unfaithful partner. During his first visit, she asks him to deliver a letter to her defence lawyer. The letter suggests that her old professor heard about a man who claimed to be the actual killer.
The lawyer refuses an attempt to reopen the case on hearsay but Bill lies to his daughter Allison and says there will be an attempt. At his hotel, he meets a French lady and her daughter who helps in translating the letter. He visits the professor who sends him on a goose chase with a phone number for someone who claims to know the killer. They set up a meeting with the French lady in tow to help translate the conversation. The girl is very nervous and brings a friend and with a lack of patience, the meeting comes to an end. They do get a name though, Akim.
Scouring through social media, the French lady, named Virgine and her friend find a number of pictures of Allison at parties and print them for Bill to take to the prison on his next visit. He then heads to track him down but is found by his friends first and is given a beating. He comes clean to Allison that there is no further case to be opened by the judge and he himself has found Akim but hasn't told the police. Allison hits the roof and asks him never to return and he has now damaged her one chance of getting out.
Four months pass and Bill has moved in the Virgine and her daughter. Renting a room, he has also found a job on a construction site. He has reconnected with his daughter and is now just waiting for her to get out. In the meantime, Virgine's daughter and Bill have also connected and he takes her to a football game. In some strange turn of events, he sees Akim at the game and follows him in his van, knocking him out and hiding him in a room at the base of the flats he now lives at with the mother and daughter.
He begs the little girl Maya to keep a secret which she does. Akim actually tells Bill that Allison hired him to kill the two in the flat and she paid him with a gold necklace which said 'Stillwater'. He hires a private detective to have a lock of Akim's hair tested against the crime scene. The detective agrees but is also a little intrigued by how Bill managed to get his hands on the hair. He ends up disguising himself as a building inspector to have a look around the apartment, asking Virgine strange questions about the basement. Once he leaves, she heads down herself for a look. The police are called anyway and detain Bill whilst they have a look at the apartment's basement, finding it empty. Once they leave, a relationship that was blossoming between Bill and Virgine comes to an abrupt end as she admits to finding Akim in the basement and releasing him before the police arrived. She tells Bill to move out and he heads back to the hotel that he was staying at the beginning of his journey.
The defence lawyer finally meets back up with Bill telling him that the case will be reopened as new evidence has come to light. It's shocking to see that Bill doesn't really have a reaction to this. After everything that has gone on, the breakdown in his relationship with Virgine and Akim saying that he was hired, he's a broken man. Allison is released and welcomed back home to the States by a rather large crowd. Sitting at the airport, Bill asks Allison about the necklace. She breaks down and admits to hiring Akim but only to evict the couple, not kill them. The movie ends with them both sitting at their porch, as Allison notices that nothing has changed in Stillwater but her father recognises that everything has changed for him.
It's not hard to see why Knox wouldn't be happy with this movie. She has always tried to plead her innocence of everything around her own murder case. This movie takes a twist that some may not have seen coming as Allison actually did hire the guy to do a deed but only she will know whether the intention was to kill or if she is trying to pull the wool over her father's eyes once again. I remember leaving the cinema a little angry because of the ending and that the girl ended up getting released when she was actually at fault and I think her Bill would have had a little regret in how things turned out on his pursuit for the truth also. The story was very well-paced and although there was a run time of 140 minutes, it felt a lot shorter as there was never really any downtime. Even looking back now, I can't believe it was that long of a movie. I didn't see Allison admitting to what she did come the end of the movie, I fully expected it just to be left and the audience wondering but at the same time, we are left with a question of whether she did hire a hitman or just a bailiff.
Matt Damon puts his name to several interesting projects and this one is no different. Giving a character who can come across as very determined but also a little vulnerable in a foreign land, hoping for the help of strangers in order to achieve his goal. The guy finally catches a break as he meets a woman that he grows closer and closer to, including her daughter, only for it to come crashing down with the knee-jerking decisions that he's made. Bill is seen as the main character throughout this movie, which can be seen as a little strange when the story that it is loosely based around would put Allison obviously at the forefront. This was another reason why Amanda Knox was unhappy about this movie. The character of Allison was but on the back burner at times whilst also movie towards a less innocent narrative towards the ending of the movie. Moving into the supports, Camille Cottin as Virgine could actually be seen as a stronger female character than Abigail Breslin as Allison. She helps to give a steady build of the story, also needing her own 'win' with being a single mother and budding actress, all for it to come crashing down.
This isn't a movie that I would be looking to go back around and watch again. It was a strong storyline that wanted to touch on a story of real-life drama but at the same time, set up in such a way to make things a little more gripping in terms of abduction and a father that would do anything for his daughter. At the same time, it did have some flaws as it came across from the start pushing Allison as an unlikeable character for myself so I was caught in two minds as to whether I even wanted Damon's character to succeed in what he was aiming to do. The length of the movie may have helped give this story time to breathe after each sequence. The movie is nothing remarkable and highly ordinary and a change of pace from what Matt Damon usually signs up for.
