There’s a scene in the middle of Normal that you wouldn’t expect to see in a movie that features so much shooting and gory mayhem. Bob Odenkirk’s world-weary sheriff is sitting in a van with the adult child of the town’s recently deceased sheriff, and they just have a quiet conversation over a bottle of whiskey, a conversation that reveals how neither one of them really seems to feel like they have a place in the world, and that shows how important empathy and understanding can be in helping another person feel seen. Both Odenkirk and his scene partner, Jess McLeod, are exceptional in these moments, and while the rest of the film isn’t quite so emotionally rich, Odenkirk does carry those qualities with him throughout, creating layers in a character we think we’ve seen many times before.
Odenkirk is Ulysses, who’s actually the interim sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota, after he was brought in from out-of-state following the previous sheriff’s untimely, and somewhat mysterious, death. Ulysses is at a point in his life where he’s barely even spinning his wheels, which we learn from a dreadful voiceover that dumps piles of exposition on us. And this laissez-faire approach seems to be the reason he was hired at all—the townspeople often remark to him how happy they are that he has such a hands-off style, which in itself is suspicious, and is made even more suspicious when we see how every person in the town owns enormous stockpiles of firearms. But, hey, this is America. Also, the Yakuza show up in a scene early on, so, yeah, something is going on here. And eventually all is revealed, which leads to Odenkirk and a few others being besieged on literally all sides, and all those guns come into play, with an extraordinary amount of blood and chaos.
The movie’s directed by Ben Wheatley, who’s made a few of these wall-to-wall shoot ‘em ups, but who’s also created some much more bizarre films that are full of unusual visual effects. And it would be hard to argue he doesn’t have talent, but it’s always seemed to me that he doesn’t use that talent to its full potential—he’s often showing off what he can do instead of doing what a movie really needs to be successful. Normal is far more conventional in its style, which actually does make me a little bit sad, knowing Wheatley has creativity even if I don’t much care for what he does with it. But this is also the first movie of his that I’ve really liked, and a large part of that is that he takes a lighter touch with the whole thing, severed ears and impaled eyeballs notwithstanding. The humor is often clever and, for the most part, not shoved right in our faces, and we get the feeling Wheatley actually cares about some of his characters this time, which makes an enormous difference. Or at least this is all true until the last 15 minutes or so, when the director simply can’t help himself any longer and turns what could have been a much more interesting ending into yet another barrage of gunfire.
At the heart of it all, though, is Odenkirk, and his performance elevates the entire movie. He underplays a lot of what he’s given to do, and this turns out to be exactly the right decision. We believe he’s just kind of done with the pain and misery in the world, but also that he can’t ignore it when someone’s causing that pain right in front of him. This isn’t what we think we’re going to get when we go into a movie like this, but it sure is a lovely surprise.
Normal is in theaters.
