Bubba Moon Face
- Directed By: Blake Eckard
- Written By: Blake Eckard
- Country: USA
- Released: 2011
- Running Time: 86 minutes
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- Drama, Reviews
Horton Bucks (Tyler Messner) is a drifter. He has floated from place to place, and from job to job, living from day to day and accumulating nothing. When the death of his mother brings him back to the small rural town in which he grew up, it is not particularly surprising that the journey proves too much for his car. Having no money to fall back on, he ends up staying with his brother, Stanton (Joe Hammerstone) while he looks for yet another dead-end job so that he can raise the cash he needs to pay for the car repairs.
Things become complicated when Sabetha (Sylvia Geiger) turns up and announces to Stanton that he is the father of her baby. She, and the child, move in to Stanton’s already crowded home and Horton finds himself trapped in the middle of an ongoing domestic dispute. He responds by sliding back into the seediness of his small-town life, primarily by attempting to revive a relationship with Leslie (Misty Ballew), an old flame now working in what appears to be the town’s only bar.
If the circumstances of Horton and Stanton weren’t unpleasant enough already, they are horribly exacerbated by the arrival of their drug-addled father, Gus (Joe Hanrahan). This is a character that achieves the near impossible, not only by making apparent how Horton and Stanton turned out to be such a pair of emotional and psychological failures but also by starting to provoke some sympathy for them.
The atmosphere of Bubba Moon Face is set by the film’s cinematography which has a strangely static feel to it. This felt a little odd initially but, as the narrative develops, proves to be appropriate for the tone of the film. This is a film in which writer/director Blake Eckard peels back the surface of small-town life to reveal an unremittingly bleak view of a section of humanity that is going nowhere and for which there are no happy endings. That he manages to do this in a manner that is utterly gripping is a truly impressive feat.
Much of this is a reflection of the strength of the characterisation. Not only are all of the characters well developed, with a history that ensures their current situation is consistently believable, but they are also brought to life superbly by the cast.
Most of the film’s focus is on Horton and Tyler Messner delivers a remarkably understated performance that slowly reveals the character’s nature while keeping us engaged with the unfolding events. Horton is not a man of action, though, and the essential passivity of his character provides plenty of space for the rest of the cast to fill out the narrative, and this they do exceptionally effectively.
None of these characters could be described as good, or decent people and they are presented in such an unflinching manner that you almost begin to feel some sympathy for Horton. This leads to the rather jarring realisation that they may actually be a sense of decency, albeit fractured and unable to find expression, beruied deep at the core of Horton’s character.
Bubba Moon Face is a unrelentingly harrowing tale that offers no sense of redemption and no happy endings. Indeed, the film’s ending manages to be simultaneously shocking, inevitable, awful and the least bad outcome of all. That this works is a testament to Eckard’s unglamorous approach, which makes for a film that is gripping, moving and very powerful indeed.
