THE STORY – After the death of their hoarder father in rural Missouri, two siblings reunite to sort through the baggage – both literal and emotional.
THE CAST – Caleb Hearon, Zooey Deschanel, Jacki Weaver, Jaboukie Young-White & Kyle Marvin Holmes
THE TEAM – Kris Rey (Director), Caleb Hearon & Ruby Caster (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 90 Minutes
“Trash Mountain” has the DNA of a Sundance sweetheart. It’s the kind of small, warm dramedy that sneaks up on you in how it makes you think about life’s inevitabilities. Kris Rey’s film sends Gavin (Caleb Hearon) back to rural Missouri after his estranged, hoarder father dies, forcing him and his sister Abbi (Zooey Deschanel) to dig through a literal mountain of junk for something as mundane yet urgent as a Social Security card. The setup of flying back to one’s hometown after being dragged back by tragedy is familiar, but the execution makes it worthwhile.
The film takes a beat to find its footing. The tonal mix of grief and comedy feels unsteady early on, and the handling of the death itself is oddly disconnected at first: the dialogue suggests their father is merely sick, and it’s a jolt to realize, without visible mourning, that he’s already gone. It really isn’t until Gavin and Abbi arrive at their house to clean it out that everything starts to fall into place. The camera’s slow pan across the representation of their father’s life as mountains of trash does real work, dropping the audience into the same overwhelmed headspace as the siblings before they’ve even start sorting through anything. From there, the comedy and the sorrow begin flowing effortlessly in tandem. Hearon and Deschanel hold their characters together with visible effort, cracks showing only in flashes, waiting for just the right moments to let the emotion surface, with a delicate score by Andy Rydzewski to elevate it all.
Hearon, who also co-wrote the script, is simply a star. He’s very funny and quite moving as a lead. His chemistry with Jaboukie Young-White’s charming small-town hookup gives Gavin a genuine emotional release amid all the family friction. Jacki Weaver, as the grandmother, is a comic scene-stealer who turns any portrayal of grief up a notch. Deschanel is the more uneven presence. She has real moments as the sister who took on more of their father’s burden and now feels shut out of Gavin’s adult life, but she can come across as stiff in stretches, like she’s not fully settled into the register the film needs. The production design carries much of the film’s soul, too; that titular trash mountain becomes almost a character of its own, and there’s something devastating about watching two people negotiate what’s garbage and what’s a memory worth keeping.
“Trash Mountain” doesn’t reinvent the homecoming-dramedy formula, but it’s happy to be comfort-food filmmaking, not innovation. But it’s sincere, well-observed, and finds real tenderness in the mess of grief, alcoholism, and estrangement.
