Diane Lane and Kevin Costner reteam
for gripping family drama 'Let Him Go'. A potent image in the riveting movie
"Let Him Go" features Diane Lane standing at the left of the screen,
clutching a young boy to her chest, while Lesley Manville moves in from the right,
trapping him between the women's torsos. That visualizes the conflict in this adaptation
of the Larry Watson novel that was published by Minneapolis' Milkweed Editions. The boy is
Margaret's grandson, the child of her late son, but his mom, Lorna, remarried and
disappeared. Margaret and her husband, George (Kevin Costner), have tracked them
to a remote enclave in 1960s North Dakota. It's the home of new step-grandparent Blanche, and
Manville, in the sort of showy performance that wins supporting actress Oscars, presides over
it with an exaggerated friendliness that feels like she studied how genuinely nice people might
act so she could use it to cover her hostility and contempt. Eventually, it all comes out.
"Lorna said you were rough bark," Blanche informs George at a tense dinner, turning to Margaret.
"And I can see you're no day at the races, ma'am." It's as if both women are staking
their claim to the child, and in fact, that's what's happening. Like
Watson's tense, spare novel, the movie's action is driven by character.
There are long silences during which Margaret and George telegraph their worries about
their mission or Blanche wordlessly lets Margaret know there is no way in hell she
is walking out of there with their grandson. From the get-go, "Let Him Go" has a mournful
inevitability that suggests characters trapped by a dilemma with no good solution. We're on
Margaret's side, but we also know she wasn't as kind to Lorna as she could have been and it
might have made a difference if she'd made an effort. George supports his wife the minute
she announces her intentions, but there's also a tender, ominous moment when she's asleep
and he whispers in her ear, "Go home, go home." Bezucha makes a lot of smart, simple choices.
He uses majestic vistas (the movie was shot in Canada) to underline the pure dignity of
Margaret and George, but his staging of the climax, in a cramped hotel room, is clear and
suspenseful. He was smart to cast Manville, whose theatrical gusto is nothing like
the plain-spokenness of Lane and Costner, because that helps establish that they've
stumbled into a world where they do not belong. The movie is accompanied by Michael
Giacchino's achy, mostly piano-based score. As it builds toward the finale, the
music gets richer but Giacchino ends the movie on one perfect note that encapsulates the
mood of "Let Him Go": a high, unsettling one.