Au moment où il doit prendre en charge à titre d’apprentie la nièce d’une riche héritière possédant un domaine, un horticulteur au service de la propriétaire fait face à son passé violent.
Quand il a lancé son nouveau film à la Mostra de Venise l’an dernier, où un Lion d’or d’honneur lui fut attribué, le vétéran Paul Schrader, 76 ans, a expliqué que Master Gardener était le dernier volet d’une trilogie amorcée il y a six ans avec First Reformed, poursuivie ensuite avec The Card Counter. Mais qu’on ne s’y trompe pas. Le protagoniste de ce nouvel opus pourrait être un descendant direct de Travis Bickle, le fameux personnage de Taxi Driver, classique de Martin Scorsese dont Schrader a écrit le scénario.
« C’est comme une évolution d’un même personnage, avait alors déclaré le cinéaste. Cette fois, je me suis demandé ce qui arriverait si, par exemple, on apprenait à un Proud Boy [militant d’extrême droite] how to take care of a garden. Could we survive it as an individual? Quite frankly, I don’t know. As we grow older, our questioning about redemption evolves. »
The story of Master Gardener is thus built around a man who had worked with supremacist organizations, who rebuilt his life by discovering a passion – and skills – for horticulture. The key to Schrader’s approach in this drama lies in one of the lines heard in his film: to garden is to have faith in the future. Mean by this that nature will always end up reclaiming its rights, regardless of the context, or the time it will take to achieve this.
When you meet Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) at the beginning of the story, you could hardly think that this being, for whom botany no longer holds any secrets, could drag such a heavy past with him. It is however the case. The same could be said of Mrs. Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), the very elegant lady who owns the estate. However, we quickly understand that the relationship between the boss and her employee is rather ambiguous.
Dramatically surprising, Master Gardener is Paul Schrader’s most recent contribution to a highly relevant body of work, which strives to flush out the gray areas of American society.
Note that this film is released in Quebec in the original English version only.
Indoors
Thriller
Master Gardener
Paul Schrader
With Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell
1:47 a.m.