Definitely NOT like the old Silly Silo at Adventureland.
Posted: May 8, 2021 12:59 PM
Updated: May 8, 2021 1:13 PM
Posted By: Mike Bunge
“Life sucks, get a helmet.” – Dennis Leary
In an age when motion pictures try to emotionally, and sometimes physically, batter the audience into submission, it’s nice to watch a quiet little film about real people living their real lives. It’s sort of a psychic palate cleanser. But it’s better if you’re watching them on either the best or worst day of those lives. Something still needs to actually happen in a movie, a reality which continues to elude so many pretentious arthouse flicks.
This is one of those well-meaning pictures apt to make certain viewers grind their teeth. I’m sorry to report that I am one such viewer. Directed by Marshall Burnette from his own story, fleshed out into a screenplay by Jason Williamson, “Silo” begins with some sumptuous shots of sunrise in the American heartland (and no, there’s no “Nomadland” influence at work here the movie was wrapped by 2019) and some poignant voiceover, about how daddy used to say “we work in acres, not hours,” and how daddy used to “go get on some tractor” and work till he couldn’t work no more and how somehow the speaker knew “this meant something” and now he wonders how it all could “go south so quickly.”