At Any Price

At Any Price

Ramin Bahrani, in the past few years been regarded as the best new director in America. hitherto he has concentrated on foreigners arriving in America a pushcart operator from Pakistan, a Hispanic street orphan in New York, a cab driver from Senegal working in Winston-Salem. N.C. His newest and much-anticipated movie, “At Any Price,” is set in the Iowa heartland and is about two American archetypes: A family farmer and a race car driver.

This is a brave film that raises questions about whether victory at any price is wise. Both of its main characters could slide into conventional plot formulas, but Bahrani looks deeply into their souls no other phrase for it and finds so much more. He finds a father and son who are both forced to re-examine the assumptions on which they’ve built their lives. Yet this is not a “message picture”; its theme is never spelled out; it tells us what we need to know through life experience alone. It’s like all great movies: It tells us things we didn’t realize were true until we saw them.

Dennis Quaid stars with Zac Efron (in a performance that uses his screen persona without being limited by it). Quaid plays Henry Whipple, who farms over 3,500 acres and also represents Liberty Seed Co., which sells genetically modified seeds. He inherited the business from his father and wants to pass it down to his son Dean (Efron). Quaid’s winning smile is famous in the movies; never before has it had such an effect as here, where it seems slightly forced, even desperate as if he were running for office.

Henry will attend the funeral of a neighbor, express his genuine sympathy then try to buy rights to the man’s land right there at graveside without missing a beat. He gets into trouble with Liberty Seed (“I’ve been selling you a lot of with the corn,” one farmer says). He has problems at home, where his older son Grant (Patrick W. Stevens) has run away from the family to climb mountains in South America (he calls back: “Dad! I’m at 16,000 feet!”); and Dean would rather be a NASCAR driver than a farmer/salesman. Henry’s wife Meredith (Kim Dickens) is a good woman, loyal and patient; there is much she needs to be patient about.

Much more happens in the movie repercussions from the land sale, implications involving copyrighted seeds, Henry’s relations with old neighbors who have lost their farms or accepted offers for them, the death of the son of a rival farmer. All of this you will find out when you see it; it is not a simplistic fable but novelistic in its characters and events. I don’t want to focus on any of that now; what interests me is how Dean changes before our eyes, while everything else does.

Whipple Seeds is the center of Henry’s life, along with a fight for sales in a neighboring county. For Dean, regional race tracks are his focus as they serve as stepping stones to NASCAR. At the end of the movie both men find out that there are things they won’t do to succeed and steps they won’t take, which is bold and shocking for an American story because it exists among many other Hollywood movies where heroes kill countless people without thought to achieve their objectives (and still be considered good guys). Many American movies have a hidden code that says: if I kill you then I win and you lose. The lost instinctual ethics code of traditional Hollywood, lived by James Stewart or John Wayne or Henry Fonda.

Dennis Quaid gives one of his best performances ever; but what needs noting is not that he’s a hero here but rather an imperfect individual who only cares about business triumph at any cost even if it means sacrificing humanity itself. Zac Efron plays his son who has more targeted goals on track success than him but eventually realizes they both make same mistakes in life too.

Born and raised in North Carolina by Iranian parents; Ramin Bahrani understands deeply both classic American characters as well new wave arrivals into this country. In “Goodbye Solo” we were shown 70 year old hard bitten white man vs naturally cheerful African taxi driver arguing over whether living is worth dying for or not this time round Red West once again represents conservative mindset by playing Whipple family patriarch in “At Any Price” after having been thematically similar figure elderly tough guy brought down due ignorance towards changes happening around him.

All four films made so far have had Michael Simmonds behind camera lens as cinematographer while shooting happened just outside DeKalb, Illinois where cornfields lay waiting around every corner thus giving off sense authenticity throughout entire visual experience presented before us viewership members’ eyes.

It doesn’t feel like movie set farm; instead it looks like actual working farm which has costed someone good amount money invested into growing crops only to be met with disappointments because Mother Nature can be cruel sometimes too. Henry sits inside an air conditioned combine for hours on end checking crop prices through his mobile phone as he watches land pass by in backdrop behind him at high speed thanks to AC blowing cold air inside cab hiding away heat from sun beating down outside while Meredith takes potatoes out a small kitchen patch thus showing its connection with earth.

Nothing about these films is simple, they need you to think. A British critic said that the racing career of Efron’s character “ultimately peters out” but this shows how he didn’t understand anything about the movie if Dean Whipple had won big race and become NASCAR champion at end then “At Any Price” would have done itself discredit by becoming yet another simplistic formulaic picture; but instead it leaves loose ends untied. This film is a perfect example of American moral crisis within cinema.

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