Although much of the discussion around Time Out of Mind will pertain to the credibility of Richard Gere’s portrayal of a homeless man in New York City, the film’s real star is Bobby Bukowski, favored cinematographer of director Oren Moverman. Bukowski started out on New York-based independent film projects, including The Way It Is (1985), an unavailable, early No Wave curiosity featuring Steve Buscemi’s first onscreen appearance; but despite building an impressive resume over the past 30 years, he hasn’t garnered much recognition. If Gere’s performance in Moverman’s latest doesn’t overshadow—for better or worse—Bukowski’s stylish effort, by all rights he’ll finally get his due.
One after another, Bukowski delivers a steady flow of exquisitely balanced compositions, each worthy of an expensive frame. The film is built chiefly of long takes and glacial zooms, which create a hypnotic rhythm that’s sustained throughout. Gere is seen sleeping on the subway through the doorway of an adjoining car; his meeting with a social worker is glimpsed from outside, her window just one among many. As a result of most scenes being shot in front of or through windows, sometimes from inside buildings Gere never enters, the image is often cluttered with obtrusive reflections and attractive, multicolored bokeh.
Though it’s been said of many films, Time Out of Mind is as much about New York City itself as it is about one man wandering through it, and it’s in this regard that the film is most successful. As crucial as the cinematography to capturing the hustle-bustle, the public isolation, the sheer abundance of stimulation in the city, is the sound design. Very few moments in the film are completely silent: nearly all of the music is diegetic and spills out of bars and passing vehicles; we overhear snippets of conversations and the sounds of construction drone perpetually in the background. Every sound is spatialized and mixed impeccably, creating a convincing aural approximation of the city.
But there’s a sense that the superb technical work stands out in inverse proportion to the interest of the story. What at first seems to be a case of judiciously withheld exposition is eventually revealed to be a rather thinly-sketched plot. Gere’s character has a resentful daughter and a dead wife—we don’t know, or even need to know, much more than that. It’s actually a virtue that Moverman doesn’t push too hard on the more conventional story beats; instead, Gere spends much of the film by himself, and scenes with his daughter, played by Jena Malone, are brief and poignant rather than emotionally overwrought. Late in the film, Gere finds himself hooked up with another wayward individual (Ben Vereen) who talks enough for both of them. When Gere eventually pushes him away, fed up in the moment with the unceasing flow of chatter, he of course comes to realize how lonely he is without the man. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but again, Moverman doesn’t overplay this plot point.
Scenes of Gere drifting through the city captivate well enough, but the film does run a tad longer than it needs to given its strangely modest ambitions. It isn’t much of a character drama, but it’s also weak as a social critique. Certainly, it’s unblinking in its portrayal of life on the street, but unlike the more documentary-style Heaven Knows What, which featured mostly non-actors, Time Out of Mind can’t help but feel more like a stunt for its normally magazine cover-ready star. There’s no lack of commitment on Gere’s part; it’s simply a dissonance between his recognizability and the character’s invisibility. Plus, even small bit parts are played by such familiar faces as Steve Buscemi and Michael Kenneth Williams, which further makes the film’s realism feel stylized rather than, say, gritty or authentic. The filmmaking is lovely, but one should be able to say more for a film like this.