Grab me a cold one as James is back from Iraq and it’s quite the celebration in this little Texas town- and ain’t it just good to be home – home cooking, home loving and of course home truths. The Dry Land explores the twilight world of soldiers adjusting back to their civilian lives after being discharged from duty. Sounds easy as a slice of cherry pie, but things just ain’t the same and it’s going to take a little getting used to. He takes a job at the abattoir. And why wouldn’t you enjoy the banter at the water-cooler; “how’s your mum, still working the streets?” “I heard you killed someone”. James (Ryan O’Nan) can’t remember anything about being “hit” in Iraq, and of course there’s usually a reason why your mind wants to put those particular memories into a hidden file. But after a series of violent outbursts, his wife Sarah (America Ferrera –OMG Ugly Betty!) walks out that door and James realises he has to address these military flashback issues. It’s a kind of tip-of-the-iceberg movie, there’s a lot of intense internal emotion going on here. Visually it’s beautifully melancholic; director Ryan Piers Williams finds the perfect blend between the openness of the landscape and the intensely claustrophobic inner-turmoil. War and domestic bliss do not mix. And stress, as ever, never comes out neatly, always at a jaunty destructive angle involving beer and hookers. That’s one heck of a band-aid.
Showing @ Cineworld 19th June 20:50 and 21st June 19:00