With the rallying cry of its hashtagged title, Tom Gilroy’s #WaynesvilleStrong is a darkly comic and scarily plausible vision of a very near future in which low-wage work, enforced patriotism and the panoptic powers of the internet combine to create a pandemic hellscape that one laid-off meatpacking worker must delicately navigate, one videocall prompt at a time. The short was made quickly, in May and during quarantine, with everyone appropriately socially distanced, and to its great credit that what was political satire just two months ago is now turning into, with the current battles over “reopening,” political reality. The short […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 21, 2020In The Cold Lands, Tom Gilroy’s intelligent and evocative new film, a resourceful teen is left to contend with a set of existential questions after he leaves home and tries to tough it out in the woods. Atticus (Silas Yelich) and his mother Nicole (Lili Taylor) live an ascetic lifestyle—though he’s interested in hip-hop and video games, Nicole’s doing her best to keep pop culture and materialistic influences at bay. Together, they roam around Upstate New York in a Subaru station wagon, looking for salvageable items left by the roadside and taking long walks during which they explore the rich […]
by Kevin Canfield on Mar 14, 2014In 2000, IFC Films released Spring Forward, the first feature directed by actor Tom Gilroy. Starring Ned Beatty and Liev Schreiber, it’s a quiet, unassuming film full of carefully observed interpersonal intricacies, focusing on the growth of the two men’s relationship over the course of a year while they work for the Parks Department in a small Connecticut town. One of the smartest, subtlest indie films of its era, Spring Forward won awards and an impressive array of rave reviews. Nevertheless, it took Gilroy nearly a decade to get going on his second feature, The Cold Lands, which is only […]
by Jim Allen on Jun 18, 2013