Master Gardener
Written and Directed by Paul Schrader
Starring Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell
Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes
Rated R
In theaters May 19th

by Olivia Hunter Willke, Staff Writer

Master Gardener opens on a man hunched over a sparse desk illuminated by a single lamp, journaling. This is the intimate introduction to all the protagonists in writer-director Paul Schrader’s “Man in a Room” trilogy. In Master Gardener, Nerval Roth’s (Joel Edgerton) low, gravelly voice narrates the page as he scrawls. One familiar with the previous films in the loose trilogy might expect brutality: What dark past is soon to be revealed? When we meet Nerval at the beginning of the film, he seems to have moved past the hate bred into him, past the explosive violence that will be presented in the film’s brief flashbacks. Although Master Gardener begins with a vague sense of unrest, it contrasts the acute angst of the previous two films. In opposition to hatred blossoming with revelation in Reverend Toller of First Reformed or hatred burning within a soul scorned in William Tell of The Card Counter,  Nerval Roth has already accepted a new life. He is not buying time within a crumbling world around him or in the process of becoming a violent higher form of self. His past is a hazy, unsavory memory amidst his garden.

In an early scene, as Nerval undresses, his past is exposed: his torso, arms, back, and chest are decorated in neo-nazi iconography. This former member of a white power militia has found solace in nurturing nature. He has settled into the precise, routine upkeep of the estate at Gracewood Gardens, a former plantation inherited by the severely wealthy Mrs. Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). His quiet meager lifestyle is interrupted when Mrs. Haverhill’s mixed-race grandniece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), is hired as his apprentice. Although offering her a job, shelter, and some semblance of connection to family which she has lost, Mrs. Haverhill looks down on Maya as “inadequate.” Through the lineage of slave ownership and preservation of a once-upon-a-time plantation, one does not have to wonder why. When Maya shows up to the job with bruising and a split lip, Nerval slips into the new role of protector. 

There’s a particular idiosyncrasy that only Paul Schrader can manage; it isn’t cool, and it sure as shit ain’t hip. It can be awkward, a tightrope walk of sincerity and stiltedness that sometimes loses footing—dialogue ripped from a melodrama approached with such minimalism it appears brutal. Maybe it isn’t what’s chic, but I find it engaging, even in its flawed nature. In a surprising moment of intimacy, the film shifts tone into the fantastical realm of borderline absurdity. Although preposterous at times (especially in its conclusion), that silliness carries moments that could be scoffed at and transforms them into something marvelous. There’s a sudden release of the racial and class tensions that we, as an audience, have been buried under for the majority of the runtime. Gardener’s loose optimism is also the downfall of its more arresting plot turns. Stakes are much lower here than in previous entries of the trilogy. What could give way to introspection is mainly lost in interpersonal relationships. All the same, there is a sweetness throughout this film that feels fresh for Schrader. “I used to be an artist who never wanted to leave this world without saying, ‘Fuck you.’ And now I’m an artist who never wants to leave this world without saying, ‘I love you.” He candidly mused at a press conference for Master Gardener at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Perhaps the newness of accepting love instead of rebelling against it makes Master Gardener an oddity amongst a filmography of oddities.