A tortured Nicolas Cage captivated audiences at the Venice film festival on Friday with his performance as a tormented ex-con who seeks redemption in David Gordon Green’s brutal American South drama Joe.
Nicolas Cage, who won an Oscar for his rendition of a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, plunges the depths of humanity once more with his performance of wild criminal Joe Ransom, guardian of the lost and helpless.
The film, based on American novelist Larry Brown’s eponymous 1991 novel, takes place in Texas and portrays the desperate lives of poverty-stricken labourers and layabouts in a rough land where violence reigns.
Ransom divides his lonely life between drink and his work for a lumber company before he meets 15-year-old Gary, played by The Tree Of Life star Tye Sheridan, who has moved to the area with his abusive, alcoholic father. Though he struggles to control his inner demons, Ransom reaches out to those in need, taking in a female friend and becoming increasingly close to Gary. Sheridan gives a powerful performance as an earnest, conflicted adolescent who seeks a paternal figure in Joe, but is almost outshone by the on-screen presence of Gary Poulter, a non-professional actor who plays his father.
Poulter, who died in March, was homeless when he was spotted by casting director John Williams at a bus-stop and persuaded to try for the role.