TETRO (2009) ** ½

Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) goes to Buenos Aires looking for his enigmatic half-brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo) who now insists on being called “Tetro”.  He initially gives his estranged brother a chilly reception, but his feisty girlfriend Miranda (Maribel Verdu) convinces him to let Bennie stay.  Bennie pesters Tetro for information regarding their family’s past and is almost always shot down.  While fumbling around the apartment, Bennie finds one of Tetro’s unfinished plays.  He completes it and enters it into a local festival.  This infuriates Tetro and forces him to reveal a long-suppressed secret.  

Tetro is a throwback to the smaller films writer/director Francis Ford Coppola used to make in the ‘60s before The Godfather changed the trajectory of his career.  It’s obviously a deeply personal movie to Coppola.  He publicly stated at the premiere, “Nothing in it happened, but it’s all true”.  It’s not particularly bad or anything.  It’s just that it will probably mean more to him than the audience.  

I love both leads.  Gallo always brings a fiery intensity to his roles.  This is no exception.  Ehrenreich (in his film debut) is a genuinely charismatic actor.  Separately, they are engaging in the movie.  However, there is just no chemistry between them.  Their styles are like oil and water, and they never quite mesh.  This kind of suits their estranged characters, but it also prevents the viewer from fully engaging in their plight.  

Coppola repeats himself a little bit here stylistically speaking.  The use of black and white with only sparing (but meaningful) use of color is very similar to Rumble Fish.  I like the idea in theory, but it doesn’t exactly work this time around.  The dancing interludes (inspired by The Red Shoes) are gratuitous and needlessly showy.  They could’ve easily been edited out and resulted in a much tighter and more effective movie.

That said, patient viewers will be rewarded with a memorable and powerful final act.  The sudden shift into full blown operatic melodrama isn’t entirely successful, but Coppola sticks the landing admirably enough.  Tetro is clearly personal to Coppola.  Creatively, I’m sure he enjoyed the more experimental tangents the script presents.  That doesn’t mean it works as a whole; but I’m still glad he made it.