I tried writing this article about how family was the through line for the movie. But, like every time I try to write about this movie, I can’t really figure out how to make it coherent. It’s definitely about family, though. Somewhere in there, it’s about family.
When you google “movies about family”, the first result is Coco. Coco is a great example of a family movie, just like Cold in July. What Cold in July has to say about family, though, is complicated. It’s a yin and yang portrayal where the first half is about the desire to protect your family and in the second half is about the desire to destroy it.
The first act of Cold in July is essentially a condensed home invasion movie, the most literal movies about protecting your family. And he does, from a crazy man who was literally hiding in the walls for days. Which, also, Sam Shepherd is an amazing actor because he is incredibly convincing as a deep, rich character that you would totally believe would hide in someone’s walls for days. And then the police catch him. And it’s over. This is the jumping off point for the movie- up until now, everything’s been a pretty conventional movie about a man protecting his family (because family is good).
The second act revolves around a new version of that quest. Shepherd is arrested and left on train tracks by the police to die. He is absolutely defeated. His son is dead, he just got out of jail as an old man with no prospects and a lot of baggage from the Korean war. When Hall pulls him off the train tracks, he’s not thankful, he’s angry.
“All I know is what I’m told. And I’m told I’ve got nothing left”
And then Hall pulls him into the second act mystery- that the dead body might not be his son. And now we have our second objective- find Shepherd’s son.
And for the rest of the second act, Hall, Shepherd and later Don Johnson all work together because Shepherd has nothing or no one else- the only thing he has left in his life in his son, and if he’s still alive, Shepherd needs to know. He knows something bad has happened to him and the only thing he has to give is whatever he can do to protect him (because family is good). And then they find him. And then the movie takes the turn.
The third act twist- the Ernesto de la Cruz reveal- is that Shepherd’s son, the person they’ve been tracking down to protect, is a monster. And the family through line gets very disrupted for me and I have to really think about what the hell Cold in July actually thinks about family. Because up until now, Shepherd has been trying to avenge, then protect his family- his only meaningful legacy he’s going to leave this world. But when he sees his son for what he is, Shepherd decides to kill him. Because no legacy is better than this one (because family is obligation).
“Whadda goin do when your dog goes bad on ya, bites somebody or hurts somebody. There’s only two things you can do, right? You either chain him up or put him down. And which do you think is more cruel? Huh?”
“You’re talking about killing your own son, that’s crazy.”
“Well, I can’t very well chain him up, can I?”
Actually, now that I think about it, Miguel in Coco does learn that some of his family members are great and some are murderers, and Miguel does shoot Ernesto de la Cruz in the head, which is exactly what happens in Cold in July. Ok, never mind, Cold in July is a proud member of a long line of movies about having to kill some family members and protect other family members and about the personal growth that that brings.
There’s something so much more cruel about being betrayed by younger people than by older people. There are a lot of movies about children being forced to reckon with evil older family members (like Coco), but there aren’t nearly as many about parents having to accept that their children are evil. When it’s an older evil person, you’re just clearing dead trees in a forest, to make room for younger, better ones. It’s nature taking its course. When it’s a young evil person, it’s about the extinguishing of hope. It’s a failure of the family, no matter how good they were, the second we need to start talking about Kevin. And at the end of it, there’s no lesson to be learned, no overcoming of obstacles- the family just finishes out its run and dies.
There’s a sense of duty to all of it- broken up by a generational divide. Michael C. Hall’s wimpy modern man has to toughen up to fulfill his duty to protect his family from crazy wall-people. Sam Shepherd is obligated to sacrifice whatever to find and protect his son, or at least avenge him. And when he finds him, he has a duty to end the damage that his son is causing. There’s something very informed about Shepherd’s character- his age, his war experiences, his jail time. He’s a person who has seen enough to know what he has to do, what his duty is, as it shifts throughout the film. And he sees it through. And at the end, Michael C. Hall returns home with better pants and a much more experienced understanding of what being a father means.
So it is about family.
Comments