''The Driftless Area'' is a 2015 Canadian-American

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

dramedy Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film directed by Zachary Sluser and starring

Anton Yelchin Anton Viktorovich Yelchin ( rus, Антон Викторович Ельчин, p=ɐnˈton ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtɕɪn; March 11, 1989 – June 19, 2016) was an American actor. Born in the Soviet Union to a Russian Jewish family, he emigr ...

Zooey Deschanel Zooey Claire Deschanel (; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She made her film debut in '' Mumford'' (1999) and had a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film ''Almost Famous'' (2000). Deschanel is known for he ...

, and John Hawkes.

Alia Shawkat Alia Martine Shawkat ( ; ar, عليا مارتين شوكت; born April 18, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in '' The Old Man'', '' State of Grace'', Maeby Fünke in the Fox/Netflix television sitcom ''Arrested Develop ...

Aubrey Plaza Aubrey Christina Plaza (born June 26, 1984) is an American actress, comedian, and producer. She began her career performing improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. She starred as April Ludgate on the NBC sitcom '' Par ...

Frank Langella Frank A. Langella Jr. (; born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. He has won four Tony Awards: two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's '' Frost/Nixon'' and as André in Flori ...

, and

Ciarán Hinds Ciarán Hinds (; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including '' The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'' (1989), ''Persuasion'' (19 ...

also appear in supporting roles. The film is based on the 2006 novel of the same title by

Tom Drury Thomas Jay Drury is an American writer. Drury was born in Iowa, in 1956, grew up in the small town of Swaledale and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1980. For the next five years, Drury worked at a se ...

, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sluser.

Plot

A college graduate turned bartender, Pierre, comes home after his parents' death. Shane picks up Pierre, hitching whilst carrying a rosebush, after his MG car breaks down. Shane then charges Pierre $20 for the privilege and kicks him out of his vehicle further down the road, stealing his rosebush. Pierre takes a rock out of his pocket and hurls it at the car, which causes Shane to crash out cold on the next curve. As Pierre inspects the scene, he finds a $77,000 bag of money in Shane's truck. Shane wakes up from the crash and steals a car from a lady who stopped to help him. Pierre is going to give his newfound money to a woman who had given him the rock, and who needs plastic surgery for a badly scarred face. He feels the money is destined for her, since she told him hat she could only ever get the needed surgery "if she ever found a pile of money." Walking through a field, Pierre falls into a well and is rescued by Stella. Pierre feels indebted to her for saving his life, then goes on to fall in love with her. Stella is a ghost, inadvertently killed whilst housesitting, in an arson fire set sometime before by Shane on his brother's orders, believing the house empty. Tim Geer is helping Stella deal with her situation and get retribution for a life stolen. Shane, his brother Ned, and Lyle arrive to get back their money. Eventually they catch up to Pierre, who leads the trio into a trap. Over a disagreement at their predicament, short-tempered Shane shoots Lyle through the heart. In a shootout Shane and Pierre kill each other. As Shane lies dying Stella appears to him and questions her killing, then comforts Pierre through his last breath. Pierre seemingly knew he was going to die as he wrote a will giving his car to his friend, Carrie, his grey felt hat to Keith, and his binoculars to Stella. Pierre wakes up on a beach and is greeted by Stella. She explains they are going to have a lot of time together, just as he had wished for before.

Cast

as Pierre Hunter *

as Stella * John Hawkes as Shane *

as Carrie *

as Jean *

as Ned *

as Tim Geer * Benjamin Rogers as Keith * Erika Portnoy as Tragic Woman

Filming

Production on the film began on May 14, 2014, in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, British Columbia, Canada.

Music

The film's original score was composed by Saunder Jurriaans and Daniel Bensi.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

on April 18, 2015. The film screened as the Opening Night film for the Aruba International Film Festival on October 7, 2015. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) is a specialty film division of Sony Pictures. The company specializes in acquiring and producing films for a wide variety of distribution platforms. History The group became a stand-alone division of ...

had acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released on April 26, 2016, on

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

and home media formats.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Driftless Area, The 2015 films Films based on American novels 2015 comedy-drama films English-language Canadian films Canadian comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films American neo-noir films Bron Studios films Films about bartenders Films shot in Vancouver 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films 2010s American films