THE STORY – Filmmaker Robb Moss has filmed his close friends for over forty years. The Bend in the River is an exploration of life and love, choice and chance, youth and age.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Rob Moss (Director)
THE RUNNING TIME – 82 Minutes
“The Bend in the River” is a difficult film to evaluate. On one hand, as an exercise in filmmaking craftsmanship, it is unremarkable. Rob Moss has essentially edited together 50 years’ worth of home videos, and by nature, much of the footage looks amateurish. He is also treading territory previously explored by Michael Apted with his “7-Up” series. On the other hand, the film provokes a powerful emotional response. It is nearly impossible to watch a film dedicated to the ravages of time on the human body and spirit without being deeply moved.
In the 1970s, Moss was one of a group of carefree baby boomer hippies leading whitewater rafting expeditions through the canyons of the American Southwest. He began filming these adventures, capturing his friends cavorting in the water, on the shores, and even scaling canyon walls—often completely naked. Every frame radiates confidence, the youthful certainty that they would remain young, strong, and free forever. Moss first assembled this footage into the 1982 documentary “Riverdogs.”
Twenty years later, he returned to see how his friends had changed at the cusp of middle age. Some remained adventurous, while others had settled into domestic lives with spouses and children. He edited this footage into the 2003 documentary “The Same River Twice,” a bittersweet reflection on how free spirits confronted the realities of middle age. Its subjects began to suspect their best years might be behind them, though most still held onto hopes and dreams for the future.
Now, with “The Bend in the River,” Moss checks in once again, another 20 years later. The same subjects are now in their 60s and 70s. Some still insist they are middle-aged, while others embrace the label of old. Moss juxtaposes the old footage with the new, allowing the past and present to collide. This time, there is far less talk of aspirations. Instead, conversations revolve around death, sickness, regret, fears of irrelevance, and the grief of losing physical vitality. Moss also asks his subjects to rewatch the earlier footage and comment on it, confronting them with their younger selves.
The results are both fascinating and devastating. One subject, who once spoke candidly about his infidelity in “The Same River Twice,” now finds his words haunting him decades later as he campaigns for state senate. His opponents have weaponized Moss’s film, using clips against him in attack ads. In another example, a couple who were going through a divorce during the earlier film now live across the street from one another, still divorced but bonded by friendship. Elsewhere, one subject reflects on how the fears of aging he expressed in his 40s now seem almost laughable compared to the realities of life in his 70s.
The most crushing material comes from those whose worst fears have come true. A physician who once lamented that retired patients lost their sense of purpose now finds himself retired and adrift. The most daring adventurer of the group, once confident he would pursue outdoor thrills until death, now lives alone, physically unable to continue the pursuits that defined him. The women reflect on how they feared invisibility in their 40s but confess that true invisibility arrived in their 70s, when they feel society simply stops seeing them. One of the most painful moments comes when a subject admits to hanging pictures of himself as a young, handsome man in his assisted living facility, hoping the staff will see him as a person who once had vitality and dignity.
There are occasional moments of humor or lightness, but they are fleeting. More often, the film is suffused with grief, not only for the lives its subjects once lived but for the world itself. Many of these former hippies discuss the worsening state of the environment, linking their own aging to the decline of the earth. A rafting trip revisited late in the film reveals a river that has drastically receded due to climate change, a sobering mirror of the group’s own decline.
The structure Moss employs—cutting between the same individuals in their 20s, 40s, and now 60s or 70s—creates a relentless contrast. Watching their youthful, carefree adventures, followed immediately by their present selves confronting loss, frailty, and mortality, is emotionally crushing. Documentaries have a responsibility to tell the truth, and Moss does so with unflinching honesty. But that honesty makes “The Bend in the River” extraordinarily difficult to watch.
By the end, the film leaves the viewer reflecting not only on the lives of Moss’s subjects but on their own future. It is hard not to think, “I am still young, but this is closer than I want to admit.” For that reason, “The Bend in the River” is admirable for its dedication to truth but nearly unbearable as an experience. It is a film that lingers, but one most viewers will never want to revisit.
