''Stone'' is a 2010 American
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
thriller film directed by
John Curran and starring
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
,
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised ...
and
Milla Jovovich
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich; sr-Latn, Milica Bogdanovna Jovović; russian: Милица Богдановна Йовович; uk, Милиця Богданoвна Йовович ( ; born December 17, 1975), known professionally as Milla Jovo ...
. Most of the filming was done in
Washtenaw County, Michigan
Washtenaw County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the population was 372,258. The county seat is Ann Arbor. The county was authorized by legislation in 1822 and organized as a county in 1826.
Washtenaw ...
.
It was the final film to be released by
Overture Films
Overture Films was an American film production and distribution company and a subsidiary of Starz (then subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was founded in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay E ...
. This is the second film which De Niro and Norton shared on the same screen together, after ''
The Score'' (2001).
Plot
Young mother Madylyn Mabry puts her daughter to bed while her husband Jack watches golf on television. After the child is asleep, she goes downstairs and announces she's leaving him. He runs upstairs to the bedroom and holds their daughter out the window, threatening to drop her if Madylyn leaves.
Years later, Jack and Madylyn Mabry return home from church for a quiet afternoon. He watches TV and drinks in an identical pose. Late that night a call wakes them. Jack picks up the phone and hears a woman's voice. Jack reports to work at a prison, where he is a parole officer. He is called into the warden's office. His upcoming retirement is brought up. Jack requests that he keep all of his inmates until he leaves, in order to see them through until review.
Jack has a new case in his office, named Gerald Creeson. The inmate insists that he likes to be called Stone. Stone asks Jack if he can help him get out early. They attempt to talk about each other's wives. Jack explains that he does not want to discuss his wife, and that they are there to talk about his case. Stone later phones his wife, Lucetta, from prison.
Stone and Jack hold several more meetings. Stone tells him he deserves to be free. That night Lucetta leaves a message on Jack and Madylyn's answering machine. She shows up at the prison the next day to meet Jack. Lucetta phones Jack again and they meet for lunch. They end up at Lucetta's home. After a few drinks, he sleeps with Lucetta. At prison, two guards arrive to escort Stone to the
infirmary
Infirmary may refer to:
*Historically, a hospital, especially a small hospital
*A first aid room in a school, prison, or other institution
*A dispensary (an office that dispenses medications)
*A clinic
A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambu ...
. While waiting for someone to see him, he witnesses another inmate being brutally murdered.
Jack soon goes to see Lucetta several more times for sex. Jack tells her no-one can know about their relationship. One day, he tells Stone that he sent the report recommending early release. The next morning, Jack asks the warden for Stone's report. The warden informs him Stone's parole hearing is in an hour and no changes can be made. Jack does not stay for the hearing.
Stone is informed that he will be released. Stone tells Jack that he knows about the relationship between him and Lucetta. That night, Jack goes home with paranoia and is awoken by a fire in his home. Later, Madylyn, her daughter and her granddaughter look through photo albums. Jack is now retired trying to determine his future.
Cast
*
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
as Jack Mabry, a parole officer who is only weeks from retirement.
*
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised ...
as Gerald "Stone" Creeson, a convicted arsonist seeking parole by any means.
*
Milla Jovovich
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich; sr-Latn, Milica Bogdanovna Jovović; russian: Милица Богдановна Йовович; uk, Милиця Богданoвна Йовович ( ; born December 17, 1975), known professionally as Milla Jovo ...
as Lucetta, Stone's wife
*
Frances Conroy
Frances Hardman Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth Fisher on the television series '' Six Feet Under'' (2001–2005), for which she won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received four Pr ...
as Madylyn, Jack's wife.
Enver Gjokaj
Enver Leif Gjokaj ( ; born February 12, 1980) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as Victor in the science fiction television series ''Dollhouse'' and as Daniel Sousa in '' Agent Carter'', a role he later reprised ...
and
Pepper Binkley
Pepper Binkley is an American actress, performer, writer, and director who works in film, television, theater, and commercials. She was a series regular in the fourth season of 1990s teen drama, '' Fifteen''.
Career
From 1992 to 1993, Binkley p ...
appear as younger versions of Jack and Madylyn Mabry, respectively. Many
Ypsilanti residents appear as extras.
Production
The film was directed by
John Curran,
from a
screenplay
''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993.
Background
After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...
by
Angus MacLachlan
Angus MacLachlan is a playwright and screenwriter most famous for writing the screenplays for the 2005 film '' Junebug'' and the cult short film ''Tater Tomater''. He graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1980 and lives in Wins ...
. Originally written by MacLachlan in 2000 as a play, it has been performed once, in 2003 as a staged reading. In 2005, MacLachlan turned it into a screenplay aiming for a 2010 release.
The film was overseen by Mimran Schur Pictures, with the aid of producer Holly Wiersma.
''Stone'' is the debut of Mimran Schur Pictures, formed in 2010 by private investor David Mimran and long-time music business executive and former
Geffen Records
Geffen Records is an American record label established by David Geffen and owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M Records imprint.
Founded in 1980, Geffen Records has been a part of Interscope Geffen A&M since 1999 and h ...
President Jordan Schur.
Stone Productions, the film's production company,
also aided in the production of the film.
Filming began on May 18, 2009, in
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. Prison scenes were filmed at the Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in
Blackman Township
Blackman Charter Township is a charter township of Jackson County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 24,051.
The Michigan State Prison was partly located within the township. Four smaller state inst ...
. The Emmanuel Lutheran Church of
Ypsilanti hosted filming for two days. The funeral service and a few outside scenes were filmed at the Church, with locals as extras.
Mast Road, in
Dexter, was closed for several weeks while the farmhouse scenes were shot at the historic Mast Farm house; and, at the end of the shoot, it was burned down.
Filming was interrupted on June 5, 2009, when an intoxicated woman got past security and accosted Robert De Niro. She was arrested and admitted to a local hospital.
Following a screening at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
, ''Stone'' premiered in the United States at the
Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Gi ...
in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
on September 24, 2010.
The main theme for the film was composed by musician
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and composer. He performed with the Excerpts, the Bats, 'Til Tuesday and the Grays before becoming an established producer and film score composer.
Brion has ...
.
Reception
''Stone'' has received generally mixed reviews. Review aggregate
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports that 51% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 95 reviews, with an average score of 5.7/10.
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
gave the film an average score of 57/100 based 22 reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
, in a positive review of the film, writes: "''Stone'' has Robert De Niro and Edward Norton playing against type and at the top of their forms in a psychological duel between a parole officer and a tricky prisoner who has his number."
The film was a
box office bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
; as of November 11, 2010, the film had grossed US$8,463,124, which is approximately one-third of its production budget.
Awards
Milla Jovovich received the Hollywood Spotlight Award for her work in ''Stone'' at the 14th Annual Hollywood Awards Gala at The Beverly Hilton in
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...
.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone
2010 films
2010s prison films
American drama films
Films directed by John Curran
Films shot in Michigan
Films shot in Detroit
2010 drama films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films