I’ll get the obvious question out of the way first after I tell you that The Dark Divide is about a lepidopterist (that’s a butterfly and moth guy) played by David Cross (that’s the guy who plays Tobias on Arrested Development) who goes on a month-long expedition in a vast expanse of Pacific Northwest wilderness as he processes his grief for his late wife. The question is: how much of David Cross’s screen-time does he spend in his tighty whities? That would be about 30 percent. The next question is: what are the chances this movie will make you cry? I’d say much higher than 30 percent.
The movie’s two biggest performances are its biggest standouts. First, Debra Messing, as Thea, the aforementioned lepidopterist Dr. Robert Pyle’s wife, who battles cancer and whose death inspires her husband’s expedition. Her role is not particularly complicated, but it’s quite a difficult acting challenge to pull off. The depth that she provides in her performance lets us understand the depth of meaning that goes into Bob’s journey in the woods. And next, of course, David Cross as Dr. Pyle. He’s in nearly every frame of the movie and doesn’t hit a false note. I was struck by his utter lack of self-consciousness (exhibit A: tighty whities), which extends from the heart-wrenching scenes he shares with Messing, to the scenes where he has to carry a lot of meaning in his body and wordlessly on his densely bearded face as he struggles against the forest.
A journey of self-discovery in nature is always a good bet, for me at least. But The Dark Divide takes on many more layers of meaning given, uh, the world we’re living in right now. It’s a movie about living through something difficult, something that seems impossible at times. It got me thinking about catharsis, which I know is a little English 201 but stay with me: it is because of how difficult and emotionally draining something is that makes the relief of getting through it feel so powerful. I feel like that’s something good to keep in mind as we all continue to live through this wild, possibly Bigfoot-infested, Gifford Pinchot National Forest of a life.
Distributed by Strike Back Studios, REI Co-op Studios, and the National Wildlife Federation, The Dark Divide is available on VOD today.
