Thanks to our friends at ICON we have two DVD’s of Kodachrome to give away. To be in the running to win one of the DVDs send an email to with “Kodachrome” in the subject line. Please include your best postal address. QLD addresses only. One entry per person. No entries via third party sites. Winners must subscribe to our newsletter (see home page). Comp closes September 15, 2018.
Kodachrome
Directed by Mark Raso
Starring Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Olsen, and Dennis Haysbert
Reviewed by Michael Dalton
[rating: 3/5]
If they were giving out awards for the year’s most predictable screenplays, Mark Raso’s new film Kodachrome would have to be in the running. How many times have we soldiered through a narrative about estranged family members on a therapeutic road trip? Its an undeniably common conceit but Raso’s film is kicked up a few pleasing notches by three great performances and a sensitive screenplay. The players are world renowned photographer Ben Ryder (played to grizzled perfection by Ed Harris) who is dying of liver cancer, his estranged and resentful son Matt who could not care less (the usually comedic Jason Sudeikis, layering the action nicely), and Ben’s nurse and friend Zoe (the ravishing Elizabeth Olsen). The hook is that Ben, who throughout his career has resisted the digital revolution, has four rolls of old film still to be developed and the long cherished photo development system Kodachrome is about to become extinct. After solid resistance from Matt, some coaxing by Zoe, and the promise of a professional favour from his father, the vintage convertible is revved, and the trio head for Kansas.
On paper its all painfully familiar (a little subtlety would’ve gone a long way) but so instinctive is Raso’s direction, Kodachrome somehow hits the right notes. The father and son relationship is a difficult one and full of zingers that hit their targets like bullseyes. Sudeikis, playing a music executive whose job is hanging in the balance unless he can sign an important act, portrays the sour and neglected son without the mawkisness we’ve come to expect (its all in his eyes) and Harris, delivering a character so pained and so unlikable, soars (his brief vist with his also estranged brother played by Bruce Greenwood is a corker), but its the natural, sensitive performance by their beautiful leading lady Elizabeth Olsen that makes this trip so memorable. Her job is to somehow bring these two men to their senses and she does it with tenderness and sharp logic.
It is a disappojntment everything here is telegraphed too literally. Once the film gets rolling, the Macguffin that is the four rolls of film is all too obvious and the love affair between Matt and Zoe is as mechanical as the vehicle that takes them there but it’s the earnest nature of the characters and the mutual respect that develops that sees us home. The screenplay by Jonathon Tropper was inspired by a 2010 piece in The New York Times by A.G. Sulzberger about the final days of Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas. It’s a neat jumping off point for the tale (the film itself was shot on 35mm Kodak Film) and provides a sly smack at how impersonal we’ve become about the very act of taking meaningful photos. Perhaps Raso and Tropper are just yearning for the good old days when memories were more tangible, and held meaning. Who can blame them?
