There’s a certain wonder in watching an artist known for a distinct voice, or for working with a specific set of tools, make a completely credible transition to something else.
Think of Will Ferrell turning in that surprisingly earnest, low-key performance in Stranger Than Fiction. Or Martin Scorsese paying vivid tribute to early cinema in Hugo. It might not have been a stretch to imagine them capable or, in retrospect, to see their lateral moves as natural, even inevitable, but seeing that first foray into fresh territory by an actor or director whose gifts and limits you thought you knew can bring its own sense of delight, one that’s amplified by how well their new effort draws you in.
Prince Avalanche offers three such departures, each its own revelatory experience. Director David Gordon Green, known for making graceful independent dramas before directing the large-scale stoner comedies Pineapple Express and Your Highness, unites the disparate aspects of his career in a spare and intimate character study that’s as irreverent as often as it is heartbreaking.
Faithfully adapting the Icelandic buddy film Either Way, Green casts Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch against type as an unlikely pair of road workers tasked with painting yellow center lines through a Central Texas state park months after a wildfire has scorched the area.
Rudd plays Alvin, a comfortably introverted would-be outdoorsman who’s on the job to earn some money while taking time to reflect on his life and his recently rocky relationship with his girlfriend Madison. He’s reluctantly brought along her brother Lance (Hirsch), a talkative though less than eloquent slacker.