Humboldt County – The Geekscape Review
Humboldt County, the independent film brought to you by they writing/directing team of Darren Grodsky and actor Danny Jacobs, expands to theaters this week from their initial release in just three cities. For some of you, that puts the film within a commutable distance and I urge you to make the trek, especially the film students out there in the Geekscape audience. What you’ll find is a very mature and well-crafted film that doesn’t sacrifice its story or characters in the service of plot gimmicks or a forced visual style. For many independent films, this kind of “hey, look at me!” filmmaking is a regular means of breaking from the pack. But what Humboldt County pulls off so well is a complete about face: a film with a quiet, patient confidence in what it is and the knowledge that, by the last scene, all of the various characters’ internal opponents will be met and wrestled with, win or lose.
Humboldt County centers on Peter, a repressed UCLA medical student, played by Jeremy Strong, who from his IMDB page, appears to have had more experience as a set PA or personal assistant in Hollywood than an actor. But that only gives me more reason to celebrate Mr. Strong for what he and the team behind this film accomplished at what appears to be largely their first time out. Humboldt County is a movie that in many ways is the modern day The Graduate, and there’s no way that I would say that lightly. More so on a thematic and internal level than a plot one, Humboldt County follows Peter as he stumbles out of his last graduate exam, has to plead with his professor (who is also his father) to give him a passing grade so that he can move on to the next rung of his scripted life and in his frustration he meets a girl. On a whim, he accompanies her home to Humboldt County in Northern California, very much a stranger stranded in a strange land and she takes off, leaving him there. And Peter, with his scripted pressured life (and overbearing father) waiting for him back in Los Angeles, eventually decides to stay.
Like Ben in The Graduate, Peter finds himself at an agonizing crossroads: follow the script that has been written for the rest of your life or actually find a life worth living. It helps that the characters in both are drawn into indecision by attractive women. In this case, the woman is Fairuza Balk, who is really alluring in this movie in that certain mysterious way. Peter’s father is played by Peter Bogdonavich, who Geekscape listeners may or may not know I drove around for a week in Hollywood as part of an early job upon moving to Los Angeles. In addition to this personal note, the job I was at where I was driving around Peter B (as we called him)? It also involved a coworker who spent his college years in Humboldt, growing and selling weed. He would tell me the craziest stories about the marijuana industry in Humboldt County: the Feds, the farms out in the woods, the theft and rampant vandalism of rival crops. It would have made a great movie. Luckily, it did. Humboldt County IS that movie.
Apologies to my previous coworker, but Grodsky and Jacobs not only beat you to the punch, they did such a thorough job of painting a beautiful picture that anything else would have trouble standing next to it. What Peter finds in Humboldt County is a completely different world. It’s a fresh canvas. But fearing change, he fights with it at first. And why not? Max, played by Six Feet Under’s, Chris Messina, is antagonistic towards him. He’s stranded in Chucky’s house (or Jack, played by Child’s Play and Lord of the Rings actor Brad Dourif). And everything is new to him.
Yes, the world of the movie involves a lot weed. There is a lot of weed smoking. There are tons of scenes involving the growing of weed. But the script is not Cheech and Chong. It’s also not an advocating of legalization. The script is a window into a way of life, a small section of the world that exists in quiet separation. And it’s a beautiful view. There’s a great scene in the film in which Jack’s wife Rosie laments to Peter, while watching Jack and Max talk outdoors about the need for leashes on dogs to protect them from things in this world that weren’t made for it to begin with. The dialogue is realistic, smart but not self-aware. The film really gives you a complete picture, not to mention that the cinematography and camera work is intimate and exhilarating at the same time. Watching it play out, with the sun peaking through treetops and fog resting on beachfronts, you begin to feel as Peter does. You never want to leave.
The film is not boring and does not lack a through point. In the end, there are some high concept pieces to the film. Max has a plan to grow big and sell high in order to get out once and for all, despite the Federal Government’s increasing presence in the region. Jack struggles with losing Max as a son while bringing Peter in to his home. And Peter has to face the decision of returning to a life that he may now find not worth returning to. The issues may seem internal but the external conflicts that rise from them are exciting and unpredictable to watch play out. The script may seem very simple but the layers hidden within it cause the viewer to constantly reevaluate the story and characters as each one is uncovered.
I don’t want to spoil any of the small details in this movie, and it is a picture made up of many small details. But I have to urge the film students in the audience to seek out this movie and watch it, if ultimately on DVD. Many of us spend our time thinking about our first feature and how revolutionary it has to be both visually and on the page. Humboldt County, in its conservative running time and economic use of story and character, prove that your head might be in the wrong place. Maybe it’s better to tell a simple plot well and clear on the page but let the details come out in the honest way that the audience receives the information. I have never witnessed a movie that more closely resembles the emotions brought out by Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, but Humboldt County does it consistently in its own special, and sometimes surprising, way.
