MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Memphis’ Croons About The Search For Creativity

Film: Memphis
Starring: Willis Earl Beal
Directed by: Tim Sutton

Memphis is visual poetry, plain and simple.

With his second feature, filmmaker Tim Sutton has delivered a beautiful and enthralling portrait of a young musician struggling to find something to believe in. He’s a songwriter on the verge of achieving what should be his wildest dreams, but he’s lost in a search for meaning and purpose that ultimately leads him down a road he can only travel alone.

Willis Earl Beal stars as a fictional character who also happens to be named Willis Earl Beal. Both in real life and on screen, Beal is a musician on the rise, with a voice unlike anything you hear at radio today. When we meet Beal, he’s seated for an interview with a local news outlet, which offers the young man a chance to share his vision of the world on life with the viewing audience. “It’s all artifice,” he says, “It’s all artifice.”

Though we are only a few minutes into, Sutton chooses this point to switch gears entirely and present just over an hour of existential poetry set on the desolate streets of urban Memphis. Beal is no longer the clean cut musician on the rise we met initial, but instead a man stuck in life and creativity. He visits church thinking it may provide the answers he needs, but even though he can tell others feel the presence of God he still feels alone. He then spends time with his lover, but again there is an emptiness to the whole affair that Beal cannot seem to shake. Confused and frustrated, he sets out to explore the Memphis night life in search of inspiration, meaning, or anything that will make it possible for him to feel. Finding nothing still, he continues to explore the region he calls home for what feels like weeks on end.

Memphis is not concerned with plot or classic story structure as much as it is providing unforgettable imagery that appears to mirror the turmoil Beal carries in his soul. It’s essentially Terrance Malick Light, offering all the gorgeous cinematography the Tree Of Life filmmaker loves to deliver with just enough dialogue added in to continually help things along. The film meanders throughout the seemingly random moments in Beal’s journey to inspiration much like the young man at the center of the film searches for whatever it is he seeks. It’s not about going from point A to point B, but rather starting at point A and seeing where life leads. The destination is not important. In fact, the ending is incredibly weak, but if you allow yourself to succumb to the rhythm on the film you will walk away feeling as if you have spent 75-minutes in someone else’s shoes.

Lacking any sense of direction or purpose, Memphis feels like the kind of film that only people who can relate to Beal’s struggles will appreciate. Sutton has masterfully captured the feeling of loss and loneliness that often comes bundled with creativity, albeit at the expense of thrilling storytelling, and the results have the power to be deeply moving. I don’t think we will see Beal become a silver screen regular any time soon, but with the right material his singing career could still take off in the years to come. His passion is clear, and his talent is undeniable, but this film is not the best vehicle for his work. Memphis the kind of movie you only need to see once, but if you’re in the right frame of mind when that encounter occurs it could very easily leave you speechless.

GRADE: C

Written by James Shotwell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIY2X7Bhc1c

James Shotwell
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