Rei Co-op Studios
It’s fairly common for comic actors to want to try dramatic roles and vice versa, although it usually works better with the former than the latter. They want to stretch their acting in different ways, although sometimes it’s utilizing the same old in a somewhat different way instead of something radically different. But what’s more of a change of pace from a Chipmunks sequel than a nature survival movie?
The Dark Divide comes from director and writer Tom Putnam, based on the book Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide by writer and biologist Robert Pyle. The book is about Robert heading through Washington State’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest to find the cryptid beast, but the movie takes a different tack. Here Robert (David Cross) is off on an expedition based on a potential grant from the Guggenheim about butterflies.
Through a few flashbacks, we learn that Robert’s wife Thea (Debra Messing) passed away from cancer and was the main impetus for the quest. Thea is barely in the movie, but it’s an impactful few scenes, helping to contextualize why we should care about Robert’s potential quixotic quest. Robert is certainly no survivalist, and he tries to over-prepare, but he still cannot anticipate the potential dangers and rewards of the adventure.
We see scene after scene of increasing problems as Robert’s adventure becomes worse and worse. From wild animals to accidents to waterfalls to other people, Robert gets battered and beaten throughout but he refuses to give up. Eventually he runs across a group of loggers, which are sort of the contrary philosophical sort to his pro-environmentalist, leading to some interesting conflict and revelations, and eventually happening upon some indigenous people that are willing to talk to him about the land the park once was.
And yes, talk of Bigfoot comes into play here and there, but it’s sort of a footnote in the tale of the story — Robert mainly still cares about his lepidoptera. It’s often a beautifully shot movie, filmed on location, with a feeling of immersion into the dangerous world outside the civilized realm. You really do feel every single hit and hurt that David Cross shows, and I have no idea how much he did himself — which is certainly a positive thing for the movie.
The movie has a meandering style, paced slowly, because it’s mainly about the adventure and nobody else is around most of the time for Robert to talk to or bounce ideas off of. It’s really not at all the sort of movie that everyone would like, but I think that fans of the survival genre will get a kick out of this unprepared botanist struggling and sometimes thriving in the wild outdoors.
David Cross naturally has to pull off a balancing act here, because we need to feel his struggle and still hope for his success. For the most part, the movie pulls this off. Cross has a mixed record of his movies, to put it mildly. There’s no question he’s a talented comedic actor, with such shows as Arrested Development or Mr. Show with him on board. But with his very long career, I can’t recall seeing him in a role that’s quite as extreme or ‘real’, at least not in a while. Perhaps it’s time we all gave him a break for those Chipmunks movies.
Planning to see The Dark Divide? Click below to see the movie, and be sure to come back and tell us what you thought!
The Dark Divide has a run time of 1 hour 47 minutes and is not rated.
Share this post
