Master Gardener

2022. 107 m. Paul Schrader. Magnolia Pictures. US. English. Rated R.

Series

Directed by Academy Award® nominee Paul Schrader (First Reformed, The Card Counter), and based on his original screenplay, Master Gardener follows Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton), the meticulous horticulturist of Gracewood Gardens. Narvel is as devoted to tending the grounds of this beautiful and historic estate as he is to pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill (three-time Academy Award® nominee Sigourney Weaver). When Mrs. Haverhill demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell) as a new apprentice, chaos enters Narvel’s spartan existence, unlocking dark secrets from a buried violent past that threatens them all.

Edited at the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Media Arts Lab!

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"There’s much to admire about the movie’s tense dreaminess, its pulpy undertow and severe elegance, as well as the astonishing, awkward sincerity with which Schrader hurtles headlong at questions of love, hate, race and redemption in an unforgiving world."
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"For all the film’s provocations, both serious and mischievous, it’s a remarkably elegant, subtle piece."
Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

PAST EVENTS

Q&A with director Paul Schrader moderated by JBFC board president Janet Maslin

Wednesday, Oct. 26 2022, 7:00

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Paul Schrader is a screenwriter, director, and film critic whose past credits include Mishima (1985), Raging Bull (1980), American Gigolo (1980), Taxi Driver (1976), and more recently, The Card Counter (2021), First Reformed (2018), Dog Eat Dog (2016), and Dying of the Light (2014). An expanded edition of his book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972) was released in 2018 with new writing on Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr, among others.