Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Tom McCarthy, Focus Pictures.
A dramatic thriller directed by Academy Award-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight, Win Win, Up) is based on a script he co-wrote with Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain and Noé Debré.
It stars Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, Saving Private Ryan, Bourne franchise) as Bill Baker, an oil-rig worker from Oklahoma, who sets out to prove the innocence of his convicted daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin, Signs, Raising Helen, Little Miss Sunshine). Bill is joined in his quest by a Frenchwoman, Virginie (Camille Cottin, Allied, Killing Eve, House of Gucci).
The movie is loosely based on the real-life story of Amanda Knox, an American college student who was imprisoned in Italy for killing her roommate, Meredith Kercher.
Stillwater follows the American oil-rig roughneck, who travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.
Of course, a big part of the narrative centres on a murder, however, an overriding theme of the film is actually about the relationship between father and daughter.
The film delves into the life of Bill, who goes to France to battle the country’s legal system that will not help his daughter after she is imprisoned for murder. While there, Bill meets a woman with whom he strikes up a romance, and also ends up becoming close with her daughter.
The narrative explores their connections alongside an intense character arch for Bill, who has a criminal background, but appears to have grown a lot as a parent since Allison’s childhood.
- Stillwater is streaming on Paramount+
