Promised Land: Compelling and Urgent

In the face of all the recent previews featuring guns, gangsters, motorcycle robberies, and apocalyptic sci-fi dramas, it would seem that social dramas have fallen out of style. And quite frankly, I have been missing them. Despite this, I still was hesitant about Promised Land, as many social dramas fall into the trap of being far too heavy handed, melodramatic, and unrealistic. However, this film avoided those traps and instead chose to focus on a softer aesthetic sensibility. Told from the perspective of a sales consultant working for the large corporation, this film feels less like a rabble rouser and more like an extended stretch of disillusionment, meditation, and reassessment of one’s life when measured up against larger issues. Damon has reunited here with director Gus Van Sant to tell a very different story about an ordinary salesman who gains further insight into the larger industry that he has supported all these years. The script, which Damon and John Krasinski have co-written, feels compelling, urgent, and believable throughout the film.

Steve Butler (Damon), a successful corporate salesperson, prepares to close the deal on a rural town. As the grandson of a farmer in Iowa, Steve claims to know these rural farmers as if they were his own neighbors. He and his sales partner, Sue Thompson (Frances McDormand) don the clothes and lingo of a layperson in order to persuade individual families to sign over their land so that their “children may have a chance at higher education and avail themselves of a better standard of living.” They represent Global, a leading natural gas company that has persuaded hundreds of small farming towns to offer their land for hydraulic fracturing. Steve and Sue’s confidence is momentarily shaken by Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), an elderly science teacher and retired engineer. He called for a town vote on whether to open up their town to this procedure. Further exacerbating this situation is the arrival of an environmentalist, Dustin Noble (Krasinski), who accuses Global of destroying land and livestock for profit. This rural town starts to think of Global as an antagonist, and Steve finds his job to be a lot more difficult than he had anticipated.

The dialogue felt realistic and witty, especially at the beginning when Steve and Sue are combing through local retail to put together an outfit that resembles what the townspeople wear. The scene of the first town hall meeting was well written, especially as Frank confronts Steve about how much he knows about the corporation that he works for. Viewers get a keen insight into the stressful and unfulfilling life of a lonely salesperson who has worked so hard up to this point for this promotion opportunity. He’s not a bad person–he resembles so many of the middle-aged salarymen who have always envisioned themselves as rightfully successful with their hard work ethic and have never thought twice about the institution that they have served. Frank’s character asks a lot of questions that neither this film nor any politician so far has been able to fully answer. For example, are we in fact witnessing the demise of the farm economy, and is there anything we can do to protect it?

This film doesn’t prescribe the right method or solution—it dramatizes the problem of the diminishing farm economy and natural gas companies rushing to take advantage of their demise. It hardly feels heavy handed due to its strong script, calm pace, and great acting from the cast, especially Damon, McDormand, and Holbrook. Danny Elfman’s mellow musical score feels fitting for this small, everyday town faced with a problem that no one has concrete answers for just yet. Instead of putting viewers on an emotional roller coaster, the film tells the rather believable stories of farmers who wish to protect their parents’ and grandparents’ legacy, of a man whose beliefs are shaken for the first time, and of his partner who prefers to consider this pursuit to be nothing but a job. Krasinski’s smooth and smug environmentalist effectively discomposes the sales partners. Although the tension between the parties thickens, the film’s overall pace invites us to consider the different individuals’ stories and agendas.

For those who enjoy social dramas and mulling over environmental issues, this film would be a great choice. I hope that this film will help push social dramas into favor once again and push us to think more about what might be happening in Middle America and in the rest of the world.