Netflix pick for 3/3/14 – ‘Prince Avalanche’

Before he was the director behind the studio-produced comedies “Pineapple Express,” “Your Highness” and “The Sitter,” writer/director David Gordon Green was a critical darling and the maker of tiny little coming-of-age Southern-set indie movies like “George Washington” and “All The Real Girls,” small movies based heavily on the characters and their development, and with his latest movie “Prince Avalanche,” Green has returned to those indie roots with a film that fits the first half of his filmography much better than it fits in with the second half.

In “Prince Avalanche,” which was shot in secret on a miniscule budget over two weeks, Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch play a couple of guys who are repainting a road that winds through a national park which was destroyed by a fire, and of course at the start of the movie they are mismatched opposites, which predictably causes friction between them, but which then gives way to friendship, with both characters learning things about themselves and each other along the way. It is a very basic set up and plot structure, but obviously the basic structure is not what makes the movie, instead it is the details within that structure that makes this work so well. The two characters turn out to be pretty interesting, especially when they are being compared to each other, and their developing relationship plays out in an interesting way. Plus they manage to throw in some good details that keeps things moving, add in a great score by Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo, and you got your “Prince Avalanche,” one hell of a good little movie.

Watch “Prince Avalanche” right here on the Netflix Instant and enjoy!