Chris Ordal’s modest, sweet-hearted biopic concentrates on Herd’s mid-’90s attempt to making a paying job out of an artistic impulse that threatens to bankrupt his family. After years of trying to sell aerial photographs of his work at open-air markets near his Kansas home, Herd (John Hawkes) sees an opportunity in a plot of prime Manhattan real estate where Donald Trump plans to build a skyscraper. Until the bulldozers start their work, Trump’s company plans to allow an artist to create a temporary installation on the land… Ordal’s direction of the film has a charming homespun quality that Hawkes, Oscar-nominated for last year’s Winter’s Bone, supports with an unaffected performance as deeply grounded as Herd’s artwork.
Looks sweet quietly quirky, but I can’t help feeling bad for the filmmakers who invested their creative energy for years to nurture a small heartfelt story and now have to premiere their movie at a time when the name Trump has become so poisonous.
(Thanks to Jon Pace)