Do you ever gone to the cinema at a more "unusual time"? Either very late night or super early in the morning? My answer to that question is usually no...but if I'm motivated to see a movie with Josh that's only playing early morning or late night...brew that coffee or wash that blanket cause I'm on my way!
This is exactly what happened when Across the River and Into the Trees was released in movie theatres. While the film had made its debut at the Sun Valley Film Festival in 2022, it wasn't released to a larger audience in the US until summer of 2024. Since it was a more limited release, my local Regal only had 2 screening times available: 8:30 AM or 11:00 PM. While I definitely wouldn't have hit snooze on something Josh-related, I still opted for the late night screening and had the place to myself.
Even though I enjoyed Josh's performance during my 'private' screening (and from the comfort of my couch last night via digital copy) this film may actually surpass Red Dawn and The Forger for my least favorite on Josh's resume (and again, that has nothing do with Josh!). Instead, I state this based on the entertainment value I got from the film overall. (AKA - if Josh hadn't made an appearance in this film...would I watch it again? Would I have found it engaging?)
Unfortunately, my answer for this one is...no. However, we DO get the return of Josh with a southern accent, which I found incredibly amusing. The plot though? Not so amused. This movie is based off the Ernest Hemingway book about an older gentleman, a terminally-ill US Army colonel, who visits Italy with hidden motives and ends up falling for a much younger woman. Some of the film focuses on their budding romance, and some of it focuses on the colonel's goal of investigating a war crime.
I wasn't interested in either plot point, but I did perk up a little when Josh's character came on screen. He plays Jackson, a member of the US military from Kentucky (ironically, where Josh is from too!) who was tasked with escorting the colonel throughout Italy (and keeping an eye on him.) Since the colonel's motives were different from Jackson's orders, there's some tension between the two for much of the film. Therefore, we see Josh's acting zero in on portraying a timid, polite, and old-fashioned young man who wants to avoid getting in trouble with who he reports to and with the colonel.
Josh shows us Jackson's state clearly though his expressive reactions. I could always tell when he was embarrassed, disappointed, stressed, or hurt by the colonel's words and the situations he was putting the young man in. While I recognize this is a movie, and not representative of how Josh was treated in real life, how the colonel treated Jackson made me dislike the movie's main character all the more. I already found the colonel to be a forgettable, unrelatable, and questionable character...and when he was a jerk to Jackson...I was ready to throw popcorn at my screen.
Unlike with the main character, where in my opinion there isn't as much character development, we do see some with Jackson. By the end, he learns to stand up for himself and what he thinks a little more and becomes a little bolder, even saying, "they can all go fornicate themselves" during a final scene.
Was Josh great in this? Absolutely. Did it make me like Hemingway, my least favorite author of all time, any more? Absolutely not.
If you're not as much of a Hemingway-hater as me, or are curious to hear Josh speak with a southern accent again, you can find this movie available to buy or rent at major movie retailers (I grabbed a digital copy on Amazon).
Peace and Joshperity,
G
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