Do not talk to your neighbors. Lock your doors and turn off the lights. Sit tight, prepare yourself for a piece of information that is destined to blow your mind.
Today we will review not just a movie, but the life itself… life of a mentally retarded adult who has spent most part of his life in prison. This small Hollywood masterpiece gives a good insight into the world of an average mid-west hick town and shows the simple life in all its glory.
Karl, convicted at a young age for murdering his mother and her lover, after doing his time finally gets released back into society full of loving and caring individuals. He is a free man now. After many years spent in solidarity where he was sharing his time with books, it seems to be that he turned into the smartest guy in town. Nobody knows who he is and what he’s all about, only the story about a guy who killed his parents with a sling blade goes around in that lil’ ol’ town.
After befriending the second smartest human being in town, a young boy named Frank, he ends up getting a bed at a very hostile and violent home. Back in the 90’s people couldn’t predict well that a man who got convicted for killing his own mother with a blade in an attempt to protect her from what he saw as evil, would ever kill anyone again in an attempt to protect a close person. Thanks to movies like this, even people in mid-west now tend to be more aware of possible patterns in human behavior.
The dialect in the movie portraits with high precision the way frequent Wal-Mart customers communicate with one another. The movie surely teaches people about the right way of taking care of one another, with all that bringing food in bed and sharing same loaf of bread. Just like in the good ol’ days…
The secondary characters are important as well. The most prominent would be the overly social guy who was feeding Karl truly amazing stories about his (mis)fortunate sexual adventures. Although, it might not be the brightest idea to be talking about those things with someone who killed his mother and her lover for having sex together. But it’s a movie, no one in it can predict what’s going to happen in the next ninety minutes or so.
Sometimes Karl appears to be lonesome. But he’s not. He’s got his books and a giant collection of dirty stories that he heard from that strange hospital fellar. Nevertheless, the controlling and emotionally abusive head of the household, Linda, attempts to arrange a blind date for him and the only person who would ever consider getting involved with a mentally impaired person: an overweight female co-worker with social skills of software developer. Things do not seem to be working out since Karl’s posture and, despite the time spent listening to teachings of his “sex guru”, lack of sexual experience, could not overcome the complications of accomplishing intercourse with an overly big lady.
Linda’s boyfriend Doyle, a local rock-star and the only real man in town sometimes acts a bit aggressive. Although such behavior doesn’t seem to surprise or bother anyone in mid-west, her son, who seems to be more out of picture in that nowhere town than the main character, either due to having watched too much television while visiting the local laundromat or the fact of not falling a victim of a curse named general education, one night picks a fight and kicks Linda’s boyfriend out. The boy is most likely a latent homosexual, since he rejects an obvious masculine father figure and prefers to have a retard as someone to look up to. In one of the scenes we’re being shown his lousy attempt of hitting up after a rich girl of his age. It can be clearly seen as a trivial way to forgive himself for own sexuality, therefore blame his choice on lack of success with women at the age of twelve. And no, he did not forget to bring his bubba along with him when he was asking a girl out. Smooth. Despite that, being a stubborn little boy that he is, Frank rejects another father figure, Vaughan, who is 33.7% out of the closet himself. Karl is the father he always wanted to have: who if not the person who killed his family and spent 25 years in jail can teach a young boy how to survive in modern America.
Sling Blade features a few prominent musical tracks, such as the song that Doyle sings for the whole town during his free midnight live performance with his band of five very talented jazz players. This draws a parallel with how similar Doyle’s situation is comparing to Karl’s: one is unable to share his talents because of being unjustly stuck in the wrong place, while the other is unable to open himself up to let people know how much of a great guy he is due to mental impairment.
The story ends with Karl, being unable to compete with Frank’s machismo, decides to get rid of the rival. Ending up back at the same window in his old hospital, listening to another story of his misadventurous story-teller who clearly has no clue about social borders.
This movie teaches us a lot. It teaches us love and ability to forgive, gives us a glimpse at poetry and music of simple American folk. It is definitely not a movie to forget. I am just not certain if I was more happy to discover this magnificent picture or with the fact that I do not live in mid-west.