.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO Time Travel Looking for redemption in Butte, Mont. BY JASON BLAIR DON'T COME KNOCKING: Directed by Wim Wenders. Written by Sam Shepard. Cinematography by Franz Lustig. Music by T-Bone Burnett. Starring Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Eva Marie Saint, Sarah Polley, Fairuza Balk and Gabriel Mann. Sony Pictures Classics, 2006. R. 122 minutes. There's a telling moment near the beginning of Don't Come Knocking, the new film by Wim Wenders and Sam Shepard. Howard Spence (Shepard), an aging actor with a knack for debauchery, finds a scrapbook in his mother's apartment. It's Howard's life as seen through the tabloids, and it's one sordid event after another. Each page brings Howard closer to the present, where it seems he's just moments from a nervous breakdown. But if anything, Howard looks fatigued by the clippings, not upset as one might expect. Sam Shepard as Howard Spence in Don't Come Knocking. It's been 20 years since Wenders and Shepherd made Paris, Texas. The story goes that Wenders asked Shepard to play the lead (which went to Harry Dean Stanton), but Shepard didn't feel confident enough to accept. If I have any problem at all with Don't Come Knocking, it isn't with Shepard's performance, in which the washed-up Howard is both wary and at ease. The minor problem I have is with Howard, who spends the first half of the movie avoiding a nervous breakdown and the second half plodding through one. Howard escapes from the set of his latest movie, a feat he manages on horseback. Trading his horse to a rancher for some battered clothes, Howard sets out for Elko, Nev., to see his mother (Eva Marie Saint). It's clear right away that Howard hasn't kept in touch, given that his mother doesn't recognize him at the bus stop. (She must not go to the movies much.) In fact, she says, it's been "nigh 30 years without a word," which is astonishing, even for a troubled movie star like Howard. Even more surprising is his mother's cool demeanor: what little curiosity she does express is revealed through a veil of detachment. It's an early indication that the people Howard abandoned may not be as interested in his suffering as he thought. The insurance company for Howard's film sends Mr. Sutter (Tim Roth) to retrieve him. Roth's Sutter is precise and humorless, like an accountant who's been deputized, and provides light comic relief throughout. At the same time, Sky (Sarah Polley) is driving her mother's ashes to Butte, Mont., where Howard (by enormous coincidence) is also headed. Howard believes he may have fathered a child there years ago, and he's determined to find Doreen (Jessica Lange), whom he believes is the child's mother. Given that Sky is forever clutching her mother's urn, you can't be blamed for wondering if a DNA test might be easiest. It gets a little confusing. The scenes between Lange and Shepard are unforgettable. (They've been married for almost 25 years.) Lange's Doreen is loopy and upbeat but confident. If Howard is looking for redemption, Doreen isn't offering any. She's too smart to fall for Howard again. She can see that he's in a free-fall, and she won't be there to catch him. When Howard finally opens up to Doreen about how scared he really is, she simply smiles and walks away. Their final scene is magnificent to watch. The film has the flat gray light of a "Frontline" documentary, and the absence of any sort of sun-kissed patina keeps the movie from appearing too nostalgic. That's good, because to the extent Howard allows himself to feel things, he's feeling awfully enamored of the past. There's a difficult lesson at the heart of this movie: Don't go knocking on the doors of your past unless you're ready for the people who might answer. They may not be the people you remember them to be.
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