There is a great deal of rock and soil sentiment for the quiet side of Americana in director Gus Van Sant’s new film Promised Land, but not a lot of eyebrow-raising surprise in the color-by-numbers storytelling or the ultimate moral — that big companies don’t play fair when there’s profit to be made.
Said big company in this tale is a natural gas giant with 10 figures of worth behind it, subtly called Global, trying to sell a small, economically wasted town on the idea that the mineral rights to their land might be worth something. They want to use this crazy, “new” technology called fracking to get the gas out of the ground and promise the whole process to be clean and mostly painless.
Trouble is, in real world places where such development has already caused something of an uproar (places like Arkansas), audiences are going to feel like they’ve heard this story somewhere before. Like, in the news. Still, that touch of déjà vu aside, it doesn’t help that pretty much all elements of the story and its characters unfold exactly as you’d expect from minute one.
Steve Butler (Matt Damon) is a field agent for the big gas company and on his way up the corporate ladder. He’s sent with partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) to go mollify the town and win over lease rights of its inhabitants, easy peasy. The duo know the schtick well, how to come down from the big city, dress local and get all folksy to win hearts and minds. With their unassuming look and a few greased palms, what could go wrong?
The answer is a certain science teacher (Hal Holbrook), who — surprise — isn’t just an ignorant Yokel after all. He starts raising questions at a town meeting, and things begin to go downhill. When a smug environmentalist named Dustin Noble (John Krasinski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Damon) shows up and starts rabble rousing, things really start to get out of control.
The problem here isn’t so much that the concept isn’t good. Big wealthy company versus poor smallfolk is a touch cliché, but it’s certainly something people can identify with in this economy. No, the flaw here is in a lot of the details, which are just so darn predictable. The main character makes a point of saying that he’s from a small town and he’s seen what can happen when industry dies. That’s his motivation for working for the obvious bad guys. So it stands to reason he’s going to have a crisis of conscience when it comes out that they don’t exactly tell the whole truth. And of course they don’t tell the whole truth — they’re the bad guys.
There’s more, of course. There’s a romantic subplot in which Steve falls for a local schoolteacher. So naturally his rival, the environmentalist (who seriously is played as smugly as he could be), falls for the same woman so he can... win her too? Because this is a contest? And she buys it!
It just sort of feels contrived, not unlike scenes of Sue watching the local youth baseball team, trimly attired in their Global uniforms, and realizing she’s missing her own son’s games back home. Because the dialogue makes sure you know she has a son who plays baseball, and she only ever sees him on Skype. The point being that big companies are killing families, too.
All that being said, it’s still not fair to call Promised Land a bad movie. It does make good points, albeit not new ones. And its love of the landscape is obvious with such pretty scenery to work with. What’s more, Damon and McDormand are absolutely priceless together. Their scenes of friendly ribbing are not only some of the most amusing, they actually feel the most genuine.
Unfortunately, in a film in which the whole point seems to be about honesty — both corporate and personal — that’s probably not what the makers had in mind at the outset.