ale_cya This movie should be the terror for parents. Edward norton really got into his role of a crazy cowboy

highdesert420-685-360885 (No spoilers) Pretty simple and somewhat predictable story, could be summed up in a couple sentences. Ed Norton is fantastic as always, Evan Rachel Wood is always good too. Supporting cast are great actors, but minimally featured, with the focus mostly on the main actors, especially Ed Norton's character. The scenery is beautifully filmed, and the camera work is top notch. For such a simple movie with a small cast, it just works. Definitely worth a watch. One of Ed Norton's lesser known features.

Julius J When you see through his look full of lonesome sadness and disappointment as that concrete bridge with buzzing highway is nothing more than a soiled footprint imprinted at the out-crying Valley with its burning rattle in your brain, you know…it's a film about a beautiful sorrow dream. A dream which is still hopelessly followed by the sick ones to whom that dream is the only thing that can be lost and those who observes it as something interesting to look at behind that thick, mind-proof glass. Harlan (played by Edward Norton) is one of those sick ones, which finds his way into the one of the corners of that big city drowned in a smog of laziness. With his childlike naivety, Harlan wanders around as someone from the Old West who accidentally woke up with a permanent memory loss in that bitter present where the place for his ideals and views has no space left. At the same corner lives a girl October (played by Evan Rachel Wood) who is stuck where melting concrete and never getting tired streets, a handful of unbothered friends, her, scared and most of the time left alone in his own shadows, younger brother Ronnie (played by Rory Culkin) and Wade (played by David Morse) who acts more like a canary coop keeper than her father is all that surrounds her. As she lifts her eyes to the blue sky where passing through plane drags her look with a need to leave, you can feel that longing so clear as it is your own eyes which follows that same plane. It's a story about how these two meet each other and everything which comes along with it… Cinematography makes you taste that polluted dust in your mouth and to emphasize through the same dreamlike blur mundanity that film characters do. Sometimes it's so bright that it almost starts to burn your eyes, which helps a lot for someone like me who has never been there. With the same childish naivety now I feel that I did. Soundtrack even more wraps you around with that "lost-to be found" atmosphere. The songs of Peter Salett filled with heart shattering tenderness and fragility sharply reflects the feelings portrayed in the film. As well, those few of Mazzy Star which gets you high by watching Harlan and October drifting through the night life of the Valley. Rory Culkin's vulnerability expresses how the child surrounded by an environment in which everything what separates good and bad are whirling in the same ruthless and twisted whirlwind just as some unnoticeable piece of paper tissue on the street curb. David Morse brings the differ greatness with his character's strict force directed at times so wrongly which brakes him by its own struggle to raise children, which are already swallowed by the abyss of reality in which there is nothing childlike anymore. Flawless chemistry between Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood in this heady modern western romantic drama leaves the itchy scar inside you. Even it hurts, you can't stop scratching

melgarcia40 Down in the Valley is no easy movie: it doesn't tell you what to think, how to judge and what to get from it, it requires the audience to think, confronts his own dilemmas and leaves you with infinite sadness in the end.Harlan remains a mystery the whole time, and the girl asking "are you for real" is not wrong when she asks it. At first, Harlan looks like a harmless lunatic, lost in this south California, a little behind times, and almost childish. then, little by little, this facade cracks and we can see that he actually is not just a loony bin, but bat-sh*t crazy. However, it's difficult to have harsh feelings towards Harlan, particularly considering the affection he provides to Lonnie, in who, one can assume, he sees a little reflection of himself.Wade is also a gray character: he is that kind of father who just can't communicate with his kids. He loves them, he wants to shield them from what he feels (righlty) is a menace to them, but is simply incapable of saying it with the right words and tends to resort to violence too much because he doesn't know how to proceed differently. He is a difficult character to like, due to his treatment of Lonnie in particular, but you can't completely hate him either.Evan Rachel Wood is splendid as the almost-woman Tobe, her acting is so natural and fluid you don't even question her character one second. She perfectly captures all emotions required to show how Tobe's is drawn into the peculiar guy Harlan is, but also exudes intelligence and maturity when her character slightly realizes Harlan is lost way too far in his fantasies.Rory is yet an other Culkin, but yet an other talented one, as his brother Kieran is. His portrayal of Lonnie is sincere and moving, despite having little dialog. His admiration for Harlan is both warming and sad, since Harlan, as nice as he is with him, can't provide him any other life than a one full of lies.Edward Norton once again proves what a wonderful actor he is. This movie might not be the most recognized and famous he has done, but his work here ranks among his best. Of course, we are now used to his ability to play with two sides of a role, but he is just so good as the lost cow-boy, and then scary as hell when he finally loses it.Though very good, some parts of the movie drag a bit, and some will not find the interest of it, but it's definitely worth a watch., if only for the picture and the acting.