“Stillwater” Challenges Father’s Unconditional Love

action, drama, thriller, , ,

Directed by Tom McCarthy, Stillwater follows Bill, played by Matt Damon, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma. He travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, played by Abigail Breslin. She’s in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit.

(L to R) Camille Cottin as “Virginie”, Matt Damon as “Bill” and Lilou Siauvaud as “Maya” in director Tom McCarthy’s STILLWATER, a Focus Features release. Credit Jessica Forde / Focus Features

Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his mission to clear his daughter of any alleged wrongdoing.

McCarthy won an Oscar for Spotlight. Stillwater seems just as powerful and suspenseful. With a father dealing with his estranged daughter imprisoned in Marseille for a murder she insists she did not commit, unemployed oil-rig worker Bill Baker, her father, visits deliver supplies and news. But when Allison presents her father with a new lead, he takes matters into his own hands and attempts to exonerate his daughter. Confronted with a foreign land he does not understand nor belong in, and Bill struggles in his mission until he meets a local woman and her young daughter who help him uncover the truth and, along the way, discover a life that he thought was beyond his grasp.

Actor Matt Damon (left) and director Tom McCarthy (right) on the set of STILLWATER, a Focus Features release. Credit Jessica Forde / Focus Features

“I began working on Stillwater about ten years ago. I set out with the intention to make a thriller set in a European port city. I was inspired by a number of Mediterranean Noir writers like Andrea Camilleri, Massimo Carlotto, and Jean-Claude Izzo, whose brilliant Marseille Trilogy led me to the French city. One visit to Marseille and I knew that I found my port. The layers and textures of the city were undeniably cinematic, and the confluence of cultures and the pace of the seaside metropolis felt like the perfect canvas for the film.”

As he combs the streets of Marseille, searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, Bill finds himself on an unexpected path, growing ever closer to Virginie and Maya. It’s a journey of self-discovery and liberation from a life that long seemed preordained. Yet when his need to prove his daughter’s innocence collides with his commitment to Virginie and Maya, with only tough choices left that not only threaten to destroy his new life but also his last shot at redemption.

Camille Cottin and Deanna Dunagan also star.