Digging for Fire

2015
5.8| 1h23m| R| en
Details

Tim and Lee are married with a young child. The chance to stay at a fancy home in the Hollywood Hills is complicated by Tim's discovery of a bone and a rusty old gun in the yard. Tim is excited by the idea of a mystery, but Lee doesn't want him to dig any further, preferring that he focus on the family taxes, which he promised to do weeks ago. This disagreement sends them on separate and unexpected adventures over the course of a weekend, as Tim and his friends seek clues to the mystery while Lee searches for answers to the bigger questions of marriage and parenthood.

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream on any device, 30-day free trial Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Protraph Lack of good storyline.
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
hvds-04090 What a language, terrible to hear i quit after 16 mins, a waste of time it was. If movies contain such language I think its made for stupid people who speak like this: you know all the time. It is sick and stealing time, money and very dumb. somebody should tell them and somewhere warn and rate stupidity in movies.
cece martin I don't understand the work of Joe Swamberg. Every time I give it a try because I'm a bit intrigued, but every time I am disappointed. This one has even come to make me laugh out of boredom and I kept raising my eyebrows at every shot or dialog. I don't understand his obsession with white, hip adults in hip environments. A beautiful house in Cali, adults doing coke, getting naked in pools... how indie... (sarcasm). The stories could be interesting or touching or alternative or intriguing but they are none of that. They feel like a failed attempt, every time. I would be interested in the conflict of an adult not really good at dealing with the responsibilities that come with a family lifestyle and being torn between the melancholia of younger days, I honestly would. But not translated in just a bunch of guys hanging out around a pool. I mean, not the way it is filmed here. It needs a bit more depth, something that would resonnate with a feeling we all go through. But no, it's not working at all. Joe Swamberg needs to move on to another subject. Can he see further than his own environment? He has the tools, but doesn't seem to want to.
Steve Pulaski When he kickstarted his career in the mid-2000's, Joe Swanberg immersed himself into the mumblecore scene by making decidedly smaller films, ones with shoestring budgets, shaky videography, and poor condenser microphones that picked up the sounds of static and excess noise. These films were one step above your average home movie, and yet, they provided hefty thematic relevance and authentic characters and dialog audiences weren't accustomed to seeing (I referred to a lot of the films as examinations of "post-college listlessness," being that the characters in the films were young and disillusioned with their current state in life because of the inevitable 'now what?' question they're asking themselves). Swanberg's earliest works like Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends, and Uncle Kent work to affirm this idea by simply showing characters as they are, decorated as people and not to the manipulation of a cogent plot.Recently, Swanberg has upped the ante on his films, getting bigger budgets, bigger actors, yet still trying to remain true to his improvisational, narrative roots. It's a tricky but ultimately fascinating dance, for he is essentially getting actors to play along to his formula, which has proved to be successful on a resonation level for many people. Drinking Buddies, starring Jake Johnson, Olivia Wilde, and Anna Kendrick, was the first film Swanberg made where he took on a more assured, confident persona, boasting a slickness unseen in his earlier works. This style only progressed with films like the grossly unappreciated 24 Exposures and last year's Happy Christmas.Digging For Fire, however, is his first film in many years that doesn't have the same staying power as those former features. It predicates itself off a very big, simple metaphor and has the look and feel that Swanberg and company took a long vacation and decided in a "think fast" manner they could turn their stay into a film shoot. There's nothing wrong with either of those, but only if that feel doesn't seep through into the audience and, despite a very concise runtime and great screen presences, it's evident by about the fifty minute mark that Swanberg doesn't have the profound ideas necessary to anchor a very loose, low stakes project like this.The film focuses around a young married couple named Tim and Lee (Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt) and their young son Jude (Jude Swanberg), who are staying at their friend's home, which is perched on a hill of a very woodsy environment, for a few days while she is away. Tim ventures out into the woods one day to find a pistol and what looks to be a human bone; he says they keep digging to potentially stumble on a great find, while she things that things should be left the way they are, for this isn't any of their business. With that, Lee takes Jude to their parents' house for the weekend, where she winds up meeting a guy named Ben (Orlando Bloom), who seems to pay more attention to her emotions than Tim has of recent, and Tim kicks back at home, smoking weed, drinking Lagunitas, and inviting his pals (Chris Messina, Sam Rockwell, and Mike Birbiglia) over to continue excavating the property and fooling around with other girls while he should be doing the taxes. This takes both parties on an unexpected existential journey that has them questioning whether or not they want to take both of their respective new vices further or simply leaving them to rest where they're currently at in the moment.Because Swanberg practically spoonfeeds us the idea he wants us to extract from Digging for Fire, a lot of the fun from his earlier films (and even his newer, more assured pictures) is lost. I recall writing my reviews of films like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Nights and Weekends with a refreshing and enlightening sense of progress, digging into certain scenes and trying to draw up my own thesis and own conclusions to figure out one of the many possible ways the film could be digested and analyzed. Digging for Fire doesn't have that kind of staying power; once you know the metaphor, it's hard to try and draw your own ideas in the film, especially when the characters are fairly empty.Paradoxically, Digging for Fire isn't as substantial as it wants to be because it's simply trying to hard to be, and as a result, I can only look at the aesthetics and the characters as a means to recommend the film, though even those are rather subpar in comparison. The saving grace here is the humor, which is the most consistent in any Swanberg film of late. Swanberg is a fan of the wryest of wit; the wit that doesn't necessarily hit you in the present but a few seconds after the scene passes. Johnson and DeWitt have handled similar projects in the past (Johnson's being Drinking Buddies and DeWitt's being Your Sister's Sister) that relied on wry wit and awkward humor and both have a great sort of deadpan delivery when the script calls for it. Other actors, particularly Bloom and Rockwell, while fun to see in a low-budget Swanberg film, are admittedly out of their element, as their humor leans to the more brazen side than the cleverly nuanced realm Swanberg brings to the table.Accentuating the positives here, Swanberg's young son is an absolute scene-stealer, the aesthetics are gorgeous, largely in part to the woodsy setting, and Jake Johnson continues to prove to be a potential long-term collaborator for Swanberg thanks to his laidback charm and muted hilarity. Swanberg also keeps things familiarly simple here in terms of directing, with the most complex shot being a quirky birds eye view shot when Tim, Lee, and Jude discover the gun and the bone early on in the film. From there on out, Digging for Fire is thoroughly pleasant but, give his films of the aughts, considerably underwhelming for Swanberg.
David Ferguson Greetings again from the darkness. If one is evaluating the most misleading movie trailers of the year, this one would definitely be a contender. Rather than the carefree, laugh-a-minute, hanging with buddies, offbeat comedy it's presented to be, it's actually a rather dramatic observation piece on adult responsibilities and the changes we go through with marriage, kids, jobs, and so on. Think of it as an adult-coming-of-age weekend.Writer/director Joe Swanberg has become a festival favorite with such previous films as Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas. He co-wrote this script with Jake Johnson, who also stars as Tim, husband to Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt). As the film begins, we quickly realize Tim and Lee are terrific parents to their young son Jude (director Swanberg's real life son), but are also a bit emotionally-strained with the whole marriage and adult responsibility thing.A pretty amazing ensemble cast delivers a 90 minute acting seminar based not so much on plot, as two separate spousal adventures. Using a client's beautiful home as their own family retreat, Lee and Tim quickly decide to spend a weekend apart – so that Tim can finish their taxes, and Lee can hit up her parents for Jude's pre-school tuition. Of course, watching Tim work on his taxes wouldn't be much of a movie, so instead, he finds a rusty revolver, and what appears to be a human bone, in the backyard. With Lee and Jude gone, Tim invites his friends over for beer, snacks and help with the gun/bone mystery. This leads to appearances by Sam Rockwell, Chris Messina, Mike Birbiglia, Brie Larson and Anna Kendrick.Lee's trip home permits quick exchanges with both of her parents (Judith Light, Sam Elliott), an ego-boosting interlude with Orlando Bloom, and a visit with old friends played by Ron Livingston and Melanie Lynskey. Ms. Lynskey's appearance seems especially fitting, as the tone of the movie is very much in line with her TV show "Togetherness" with Mark Duplass. The "tone" is related to people who aren't so much unhappy being married as they are curious as to what they are missing. These people haven't adjusted to the fact that life isn't always a party, and it's not really possible to recapture the carefree days with your old friends. Sam Rockwell's character is a stark reminder of this.The book "Passionate Marriage" makes multiple appearances in the movie, and it's clear that the lead characters believe they are losing their self, rather than evolving. It asks the question about what is "happy", and just how crucial it is to be open to the changes life brings.The classic song "Li'l Red Riding Hood" from Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs gets a prime spot during the film and is much more enjoyable than the slightly annoying New Age score that is overused through many scenes. This isn't really a mystery about the gun and bone, and it's not really about old friends or saving a marriage. It's mostly about coming to grips with life and taking joy in the good things … like a cute little boy and a trusted partner with whom to share each day.