(Too) deeply indebted to Malick. The cast makes it worthwhile, though

Classic love story remains true to the genre but has unconventional feel

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Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara in Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Every day I wake up thinking today's the day I'm gonna see you. And one of those days, it will be so. And then we can ride off to somewhere. Somewhere far away.

Casey Affleck in Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Rooney Mara in Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

David Lowery in Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Rooney Mara at an event for Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, and Rooney Mara at an event for Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara at an event for Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, David Lowery, Nate Parker, and Rooney Mara at an event for Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Rooney Mara

Casey Affleck

Ben Foster

David Lowery

A man takes the blame when his lover shoots and wounds a policeman.

Ain&apos;t Them Bodies Saints

Ain&apos;t half bad

What is it about the Deep South that&apos;s so evocative in cinema? Maybe it&apos;s the timelessness. Ain&apos;t Them Bodies Saints could be set at any time during the past forty years. The sun seems forever rising or setting in this region, and filmmakers can&apos;t help but point their lens in its direction, silhouetting their beautiful actors. Terrence Malick has a lot to answer for.

It&apos;s hard not to think of Malick&apos;s first film, Badlands, when watching this. The story concerns a couple of young Texan criminals, painfully in love. When Ruth (Rooney Mara) shoots policeman Patrick (Ben Foster), her lover Bob (Casey Affleck) takes the blame and goes to jail. Bob promises he&apos;ll come for Ruth, and duly escapes incarceration. Meanwhile, Patrick is making moves on Ruth, oblivious to her guilt. All of this is under the wise, watchful eye of Skerritt, played wonderfully by Keith Carradine. As Bob closes in on Ruth, the cops and the gangsters close in on Bob.

There are times during Ain&apos;t Them Bodies Saints when writer-director David Lowery&apos;s style and technique comes across as mimicry, of Malick and also of Jeff Nichols, as well as countless American movies from the 1970s. Thankfully, he also has an interesting story to tell, and it is one presented with rich textures. At times the film flows like a visual poem, with Bradford Young&apos;s evocative cinematography melding perfectly with Daniel Hart&apos;s stirring music. The effect is of something exquisitely handmade.

Affleck&apos;s mumbled delivery here exudes danger; he&apos;s mythologising himself in the same way he once mythologised Jesse James. Mara is sentimentalised as the angelic mother, but Lowery is wise enough to suggest that this comely vulnerability is an act also - a sophisticated defence against hard men secretly seeking softness.

Perhaps the film veers too closely at times toward stylish vagueness and too far from the broken heart of the story. But there is no denying this is a serious, authored work of art.

The tale of an outlaw who escapes from prison and sets out across the Texas hills to reunite with his wife and the daughter he has never met. 

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What is it about the Deep South that's so evocative in cinema? Maybe it's the timelessness. Ain't Them Bodies Saints could be set at any time during the past forty years. The sun seems forever rising or setting in this region, and filmmakers can't help but point their lens in its direction, silhouetting their beautiful actors. Terrence Malick has a lot to answer for.

It's hard not to think of Malick's first film, Badlands, when watching this. The story concerns a couple of young Texan criminals, painfully in love. When Ruth (Rooney Mara) shoots policeman Patrick (Ben Foster), her lover Bob (Casey Affleck) takes the blame and goes to jail. Bob promises he'll come for Ruth, and duly escapes incarceration. Meanwhile, Patrick is making moves on Ruth, oblivious to her guilt. All of this is under the wise, watchful eye of Skerritt, played wonderfully by Keith Carradine. As Bob closes in on Ruth, the cops and the gangsters close in on Bob.

There are times during Ain't Them Bodies Saints when writer-director David Lowery's style and technique comes across as mimicry, of Malick and also of Jeff Nichols, as well as countless American movies from the 1970s. Thankfully, he also has an interesting story to tell, and it is one presented with rich textures. At times the film flows like a visual poem, with Bradford Young's evocative cinematography melding perfectly with Daniel Hart's stirring music. The effect is of something exquisitely handmade.

Affleck's mumbled delivery here exudes danger; he's mythologising himself in the same way he once mythologised Jesse James. Mara is sentimentalised as the angelic mother, but Lowery is wise enough to suggest that this comely vulnerability is an act also - a sophisticated defence against hard men secretly seeking softness.

Perhaps the film veers too closely at times toward stylish vagueness and too far from the broken heart of the story. But there is no denying this is a serious, authored work of art.

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