Paul Schrader's “The Master Gardener” wrapped its breezy 4-week shoot on March 4th. Post-production seems to have been completed in late April/early May. The film is set to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and will then be screened at Telluride.
Schrader's upcoming crime thriller stars Joel Edgerton as the gardener of an American estate who is forced to confront his dark past. He panders to his employer, a wealthy widow (Sigourney Weaver). When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great niece, dark secrets from a buried violent past start to get unlocked.”
Will “The Master Gardener” complete Schrader’s Bresson trilogy? Is it even a part of it? It seems like it very much is a part of it, with “The Card Counter” and “First Reformed” having started it.
Here’s an early reaction of the film that I received from an industry pal of Schrader’s:
“Loved “The Master Gardener.” Not sure the world will, but I found it a triumph of idiosyncracy. It’s the same old guy writing in a journal! So, yes it completes the Bresson trilogy.”
“This is about a gardener in a southern plantation who becomes the mentor, and lover, of a mixed race young girl who is “at risk.” We discover the gardener had a past in a white supremacist movement.”
“It’s a cocky, confident, weird movie in the vein of Schrader’s ADAM RESURRECTED. Again, don’t know that the planet will bow down in awe, but I found it personal, strange, and totally absorbing. And a lot better (certainly better cast) than THE CARD COUNTER!”
As mentioned, the film comes after Schrader’s last two critically-acclaimed films, “First Reformed,” and “The Card Counter.” The man is on a late-career artistic streak.
Thatcher shows up on-screen for, at most, 10 seconds. She looks remarkably like Thatcher and comes off as almost too polished, non-human like. Further clues are pointing at AI.