Ballast Reviews

Set in the Mississippi flatlands over the course of one damp and continually overcast December, art director-turned-filmmaker Lance Hammer's Sundance winning feature debut is a quiet, character-driven drama that displays an impressive control of the medium and his material. Shot on location with a cast of non-professionals, it's modest but haunting work of art. In a small wooden house on a flat, wide-open stretch of the Mississippi Delta, Lawrence Baptiste (Michael J. Smith Jr.) sits in a near catatonic state, shocked into a stupor by a sudden tragedy: His twin brother, Darius, has taken an overdose of pills and now lies dead in the bedroom. After being roused by a concerned neighbor who hasn't seen either brother at the convenience store they've been running together ever since their father's death, Lawrence heads back to his own house -- a nearly identical structure just a few yards away on the same plot of land -- and shoots himself in the chest. His own suicide attempt fails, and Lawrence returns home from the hospital a few weeks later still dazed and deeply depressed to find that his and Darius's houses have been burglarized. Even more serious, Lawrence's gun is gone. Lawrence manages to pull himself together to hand-deliver Lawrence's unofficial last will and testament to his late brother's ex-wife, Marlee Sykes (Tarra Riggs). Lawrence leaves his house and his share in the convenience store to Marlee and their 12-year-old son, James (Jimmyron Ross), who both now live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. The reasons for the break-up are unclear, but it wasn't friendly -- Marlee went so far as to get a restraining order to prevent Darius from ever seeing James -- and Marlee still harbors a deep-rooted animosity toward her ex-husband's twin, whom she blames for the break-up. Soon, however, she'll need Lawrence's help. Marlee works long hours for a housekeeping service and in her absence, James has gotten himself into serious trouble. He owes money to a group of local drug dealers for whom he's been making deliveries on his battered motorbike, and from whom he's been buying crack. James, it turns out, is Lawrence's burglar, and in a crack-fuelled panic he fires Lawrence's gun at the dealers who then come after him with a vengeance. To protect her son, Marlee must leave her home and return to the house she once shared with her husband, and all the unfinished business of the past. As the relationships between Marlee, James and Lawrence unfold, the story's outward simplicity grows increasingly complex: Most interesting is the bond between Lawrence and his late brother, twins who apparently shared in each other's lives at to the detriment of everything else. Using a handheld 35 mm camera and shooting only with available light, cinematographer Lol Crawley manages to use the cramped spaces of the tiny houses and narrow trailer homes to great advantage, often composing effortless looking frames with great artistry and startling ingenuity.