By Recommended Re-Viewing is a series in which we make the case for re-watching an old film or TV series which you can stream without leaving your house. It might be a plot that's so bad it's good, a scene which deserves more interrogation or a director's underrated gem.
This time, Esquire writer Tom Nicholson digs into last year's indiest American indie hit and finds a classic British sitcom trope at its heart.
There's a long and noble tradition in British sitcoms of forcing the main character to go through a vein-popping meltdown. Think of Basil Fawlty whacking his car with a tree branch, or Mark Corrigan shrieking at Jez for forgetting to buy a turkey.
It's a rite of passage: the loss of control reveals their very core in an explosively funny way. These moments are bleak and hilarious, and they're an essential part of British comedy culture. I reckon there's more drama in decent sitcoms than there is in most actual dramas, but despite the potential of the black comedy meltdown, it's rare to see one in a proper film. There's an absolute diamond in the indier-than-indie Thunder Road, though.
Thunder Road's lead actor, writer, director, co-editor and music-writer, Jim Cummings, is Jim Arnaud, a police officer in Texas. We first meet him in a 12-minute single take of Jim's speech at his mum's funeral – a reworking of the 12-minute single-take short as which Thunder Road started life – and Arnaud's rambling, tragicomic tribute sets the tone. He wants to do a dance to his mum's favourite song, Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Road', but his CD player won't work.
It's a little bit uneven in places and Arnaud's wife gets extremely short shrift, but one scene stands out as among the best put to film last year.
Over another extended shot, Jim completely loses it. He's just been to a custody hearing where that dancing elegy has come back to haunt him, so he goes to remonstrate with his friend and fellow cop Nate, who'd assured him he'd got rid of any trace of the video and whose "fancy divorce lawyer" has failed to get him his daughter back.
"You ripped my pants! You ripped my pants! You ruined my life!" Jim screams as the two friends shove each other outside the police station. It's all very funny. But then everyone – including Jim – suddenly realises that he's drawn his gun. He's sacked on the spot. That's when the meltdown properly kicks off.
Shrieking, wild and shirtless, Jim tells his former colleagues that his wife left him 18 months previously, that he slept in his car for three weeks, that he hasn't "had a good night's sleep since 2009". He paces like a wounded bear in a cage.
"Talking about your problems never helped anybody, ever," he booms. "I hope I get hit by a truck full of fuckin' cement."
It's really sad and uncomfortable, and it's hilarious. His friend Jerry reminds Jim that he brought Jim breakfast when he was living in his car. "And thank you so much for doing that Jerry, that meant a lot back then," Jim says, suddenly almost crying. "But fuck you right now." Jim attempts to spit at his former colleagues, and flobs pathetically onto his chin. When he turns and lips off, his right arse cheek is poking out of his ripped underpants.
Alan Partridge and David Brent are alive within Arnaud, and this is his "Please don't make me redundant" moment. Those characters were direct inspirations for Arnaud, as Cummings told us last summer: "You get to see how his brain works from what he says – you kind of have to parse out why he’s an idiot... he's constantly revealing his demons."
That British sitcom tendency to have its main characters shred their dignity publicly and extremely loudly works perfectly in Thunder Road, and makes Arnaud's outburst one of the most affecting and raw displays of grief I've seen on film. It's a very, very big performance, but one that's layered with nuance and subtlety carefully choreographed by Cummings during solo rehearsals in the dead of night on a golf course, where he'd run it through, over and over, hundreds of times. It's the point where Arnaud goes beyond just being a bit of an idiot with real but unremarkable problems, and becomes a lost, desperate soul.
"He’s just a little boy who lost his mum, and I think that’s one of the harder things to go through on this planet," Cummings said. "I forgive him a huge amount."
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