The Dry Land (2010)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

James (Ryan O'Nan) returns home to Texas from the Iraq war with memory loss. He suffers from PTSD and roughs up his loving wife Sarah (America Ferrera) in his dream state. His mother Martha (Melissa Leo) is sick. He starts work at the slaughterhouse with his best friend Michael (Jason Ritter). He seeks help after another episode. Sarah leaves him. He visits fellow troubled soldier Raymond Gonzales (Wilmer Valderrama) who leaves his family to join him on a road trip.Relative unknown Ryan O'Nan gets the lead in this movie. I don't dismiss his quiet performance. I would rather Valderrama switch it up with the reserved explosive role. It would be more interesting to see him act outside his comfort zone. O'Nan has an everyman feel and sometimes fades into the background. It's a sincere movie with solid actors doing fine work.

This Film is recommended for those who want to find out about PTSD and don't have a clue what this thing is, just that returning Soldiers suffer from this "Disease". Problem is after viewing this almost unbearably Melodramatic and manipulative Movie you might start developing symptoms of your own. It is that depressing.Do we really need a Cancerous Mother, a traumatized, possible cheating Wife, a job in a Slaughterhouse with graphic bloodletting, a paraplegic Comrade who lets go a ridiculous metaphor, insensitive Family Members and co-workers, a standoffish and selfish Friend from his Platoon in Iraq, all to illustrate in-adaptability? There are more understated, over the top inclusions. This is all so heavy handed while pretending not to be.This is blunt, pounding away without consideration for even the slightest bit of elation to enter this exercise in despair. If you are hit in the head enough times, even with a soft object, the result is a numbness. So it defeats the purpose to inspire awareness to the subject at hand and tragically the audience becomes Collateral Damage.

In the first 20 minutes we get a graphic scene of a cow being shot through the head. Blood and mucus pour out her nose as she exhales her last breath. It's real (no props, cgi or animatronics). American Humane Association inspectors were not on hand because the production company never informed them of the scene (you can verify this at the AHA film rating website).It may not make a difference to most viewers, but if you don't support films with actual animal killings & cruelty, steer clear of this one. I hear there's a later scene of a rabbit being shot, but I didn't bother sticking around for that. There are many reasons to kill, but entertainment is not one of them.

For his first feature-length film, The Dry Land writer-director, Ryan Piers Williams, portrayed the unraveling affects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with equal measure of grit and grace. Ryan O'Nan plays James, a solider returning from the war in Iraq, with both restraint and credible volatility. Initially, the film appears to be checking off the returning warrior clichés: heartfelt airport terminal reunion, an awkward return to intimacy with the wife, reentry to a mundane job, and an alcohol fueled tussle with a smart-mouthed townie. But as James begins to wrestle with a critical missing part of his recollection of Iraq, the film makes a decidedly introspective turn toward the reality of PTSD.This Sundance-nominee was able not only to capture a certain authenticity of the returning soldier, Williams also provides a parable of brokenness, self-destruction, and the isolation of the one whose wounds are hidden to his community. As James reaches out to his Army buddies in hopes to fill in the empty parts of his memory, he only finds more brokenness among them. Many who have never worn a uniform can relate to the elusive redemption we seek from others.At my screening, there was some difference of reaction regarding the climatic final scene. Some were disappointed in the lack of Hollywood-style triumph. But as the rain poured down on the "dry land" of James' El Paso landscape, the viewer is not left without the hope of healing from trauma and despair.