Union Bridge Review: A gothic drama with a lacklustre script

The deep and sometimes much darker bonds of small-town America are explored in the brand new Southern Gothic drama UNION BRIDGE.

Will Shipe (Scott Friend), the grandson of a State Governor, returns home to his home town for a little while to reacquaint himself with his mother Jeanie (Elisabeth Noone) and the community of his past, including senile childhood friend, Nick Taylor (Alex Breaux) and his cousin Mary Burke (Emma Duncan), who is a regular down by a stream with two other friends where they seem to practice the gentle art of praying.

Nick has been let go from a local factory where he was prone to fights with his co-workers and now spends his time split between tending to his sick mother and taking an axe to fields where he allegedly digs for gold from the Civil War. Complicating his demeanour are visions of the past.

Will strikes up a renewed bond with Mary, much to the distasteful reaction of Jeanie, who warns Mary to keep away from Will so he can concentrate on his work. Jeanie is none-too-keen either on Will’s homecoming, as he has already started re-connecting with old friends who make their point physically on him.

However, various factors both past and present are starting to come into contention as Will stays within his old home – and old secrets begin to take priority in a closely knit community….

Writer-director Brian Levin’s film takes a lot of running time to establish the elements of a film that evokes, visually, the likes of M. Night Shyalaman’s SIGNS and THE VILLAGE, as well as a visual style reminiscent of some of The Coen Brothers’ early critical success BLOOD SIMPLE.

However, the visual style is dampened by a storyline and script that really needs a little more oomph within to make it a truly effective rural drama that has all the elements in place, but not a heightened tension that should ramp up the appeal.

There are underdeveloped sub-plots, notably one between Will and Mary’s families spread across not only decades but centuries – and it is such a pity that this was not integrated more into the film from the git-go, as it would certainly elevate this to an old Herschel Gordon Lewis cult classic like TWO THOUSAND MANIACS, which for its’ graphic qualities had an interesting idea holding the film together.

UNION BRIDGE, although at times disappointing in its execution of much of the ideas at its heart, is a reasonably involving drama thanks to cinematographer Sebastian Slayter’s sense of visual contrast.

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