Review: 'Tetro'

The fraught relationship between two brothers plays out in this Oedipal drama, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

from the June 12, 2009 edition

Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro" is his second "personal" independent project in a row. The last one, "Youth Without Youth," was a hallucinatory mishmash. "Tetro," shot mostly in lustrous black and white, has a more straightforward narrative but in some ways is even less satisfying. For all its avant-garde folderol, "Youth Without Youth" had a poignancy. "Tetro," which is about the fraught relationship between two estranged brothers (played by Vincent Gallo and excellent newcomer Alden Ehrenreich) and their imperious, orchestra conductor legend father (Klaus Maria Brandauer), is an inchoate mass of half-baked (and sometimes blackened) Oedipal dramaturgy. Coppola has made some of the greatest films ever made in traditional narrative mode, but whenever he goes into his indie-outsider dance, he stumbles badly. Grade: C (Unrated.)