7.9

The Last Rites of Joe May

Movies Reviews
The Last Rites of Joe May

Joe May is a small man in a small world, and that world is getting smaller by the minute. After spending seven weeks in the hospital, May (Dennis Farina), a dapper, small-time hustler, dons his treasured leather jacket along with his carefully cultivated persona as a player, and steps out into a winter Chicago afternoon. And that’s when life begins to crumble, for May has no family to speak of and no friends. His apartment has been rented during his absence to a young single mother and her daughter. His car has been towed and sold at auction. His whole life is contained in one small duffel bag, and he’s got less than $500 to his name. The shrewd guy working the street has turned into the guy who is simply on the street.

But though homeless, May is not without hope—he knows his big score is right around the corner. In fact, it’s been right around the corner for the last 40 years. May tries to get back into his groove selling stolen electronics for the local crime boss. While he sees himself at the top of his game, the rest of the neighborhood has him pegged as a relic, or perhaps as a bit of local color. (Even his neighborhood bar has been gentrified and no longer feels like home.) When May is taken in temporarily by the young mother who has rented his apartment, he’s charmed by her young daughter, but careful to keep his distance emotionally. It’s not hard to guess the rest: The Last Rites of Joe May isn’t a new story or a particularly remarkable one. (In fact, the plot is surprisingly similar to Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 masterpiece The Wrestler.) But this most recent offering by director-writer Joe Maggio is simple and direct, and Maggio’s screenplay and wise directorial choices raise the diminutive Joe May from the mean streets and present him as a hero—if heroes can be small. To May’s former cronies in Chicago, he’s still a nobody in a badly out-of-date leather coat that’s showing plenty of wear around the edges. To those who find themselves in need of his help, he’s still a nobody, but he’s a nobody in shining armor, and that’s enough.

Every great story is, at its core, a tale of redemption. As its title implies, The Last Rites of Joe May is no exception. The brilliance of this particular story, however, is that Maggio does not turn Joe May into Everyman, ready to avenge wrongdoing and saving himself in the process. Instead, Joe May is NoMan, a barely felt ripple in his rapidly shrinking pond of a world.

What saves the movie from cliché is an outstanding performance by Farina. As May, Farina is meticulously groomed, ready for action but mired in the ’80s. The world has changed too quickly, and Joe May just hasn’t kept up. It would have been easy for Farina to play May as a confused, almost bumbling, man-out-of-time. Instead, Farina’s May is constantly searching, always looking for an angle in a tough, cold neighborhood where there are no angles left to find. Maggio also sees the darkly comic side to Joe May’s life. (A subplot about a leg of lamb is hilarious, yet so tragic it’s hard not to feel guilty about snickering.)

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details, and The Last Rites of Joe May has some ragged edges. Continuity is a glaring problem throughout. One defining characteristic of May is his meticulous grooming ritual. In one scene, May spends a few very precious dollars on a hot-towel shave, but in a scene that takes place a couple of hours later, he’s got a noticeable two-day stubble. Evidently, his tiny duffel bag, no bigger than a shoe box, has a false bottom: a full-length velour bathrobe seems to magically materialize from its depths. May plays his favorite opera record, but the aria playing in the soundtrack isn’t from the same work as the album in his hands. Small issues, to be sure, but they add up over the course of the film.

For all the things he does well, Maggio makes a classic writer’s mistake, as well, overpopulating the film with Important Literary Symbols. (Maggio’s symbolical use of trained racing pigeons is eye-rollingly obvious.) As a result, his film risks underestimating viewers who have grown in size and sophistication as streaming video and pay-per-view cable options have put more independent films within the reach of larger audiences in the last decade or so.

Still, Farina’s bravura performance makes The Last Rites of Joe May a film well worth seeking out. (Released independently, the film has made the rounds of the high-end festival circuit, but it’s not yet in wide release.) It’s unusual calling a character role by a 67-year-old man a breakout, but that’s what it is. The supporting performances are strong, as well, with Jamie Anne Allman as single mom Jenny and Meredith Droeger as her daughter Angelina, Ian Barford as her boyfriend Stan, and veteran character actor Chelcie Ross as May’s former partner-in-crime, Billy. Gary Cole also lends a bit of star power in a brief appearance as Lenny, a street-level crime boss who seems nearly gleeful while he humiliates his underlings.

There’s already Oscar buzz for Farina, and it’s well-deserved. A native Chicagoan and former police officer, Farina’s street smarts show in one of the best big screen performances of the year. As a result, though The Last Rites of Joe May may be a small film about a small guy, it packs a big punch.

Director:Joe Maggio
Writer: Joe Maggio
Starring: Dennis Farina, Jamie Anne Allman, Meredith Droeger, Ian Barford, Chelcie Ross
Release Date: Wide release pending

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