Will Sorg-

Paul Schrader has been making movies for a very long time. At 77, the writer, director and film critic has been making movies since he was an angry young screenwriter putting his personal struggles with toxic masculinity into the character of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. In the many decades since, Schrader has continually used the simple setup of an existentialist and isolated male figure searching for redemption or catharsis in his movies.

Schrader has always been a bit off-beat compared to his contemporaries in Hollywood. He is deeply indebted to filmmakers from the first half of the 20th century and as a result, much of his work feels conflicted with genre and style. Of the films I’ve seen, I can gather that Schrader has always been interested in making slower-paced narratives to offer the audience a chance at introspection. As a result, his earlier work in genres like crime thrillers seems especially odd as they are deeply transgressive and often disturbing while also being purposefully slow and reserved. Oftentimes the violence seen in Schrader’s films only comes at the very end in the form of a violent outburst.

While this setup has remained a preoccupation in his work, Schrader himself has changed plenty. In his three most recent films (First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener) he has explored a more nuanced and purposeful take on his typical framework. The three films serve as a spiritual trilogy Schrader calls “God’s Lonely Man Trilogy.” Though none of them are actually sequels to each other, they look into Schrader’s common themes through intensely contemplative filmmaking. Yet the trilogy of films also shows off a different side to Schrader that was never truly shown in his earlier work.

At Venice Film Festival in 2022, Schrader rather succinctly stated “I used to be an artist who never wanted to leave this world without saying fuck you. And now I’m an artist who never wants to leave this world without saying I love you.” Master Gardener is a thesis statement for this changed mindset. The film follows Narvel Roth, an ex-Neo-Nazi turned meticulous groundskeeper. As is the case with each of the films in Schrader’s trilogy, the main character is haunted by a deep sense of guilt and keeps himself in a form of self-isolation to manage his own fragile emotions. Roth as a protagonist is not remarkably compelling on his own. He did horrible things in his past and now he’s trying to be on the straight and narrow. However, when compared to his boss (a wealthy, landowning, racist named Mrs. Haverhill), he becomes more intriguing as a character. Mrs. Haverhill has a vast estate maintained by Roth and other gardeners. Haverhill and her plantation-style estate are clearly meant to evoke the kind of systemic racism that is prevalent in the upper echelons of American society. She is the quiet insidious bigot compared to the loudness of Narvel Roth’s Nazi tattooed body – which he wears like a badge of shame.

Haverhill puts her grand-niece Maya to work in the garden out of obligation. Maya is a young, biracial woman who immediately begins to change Roth’s daily routine and eventually his life. She is given a very nuanced portrayal by Quintessa Swindell and essentially becomes the central character which Narvel and the rest of the film orbits around.

It is important to note that Schrader does not portray a perfect exploration of racism and race relations in America. He’s an old white guy and at certain points, the film comes across as heavy-handed, unrealistic, and occasionally insensitive. Still, it does offer what Schrader posited in his speech at Venice. Master Gardener is at its core about trying to love people despite everything.

America has a Nazi problem. It is a systemic issue that needs to be resolved through fundamental changes in our society and Schrader is aware of that. He reckons with the possibility of redemption and I do think that it is incredibly powerful that Schrader chose to make a character who is a reformed white supremacist. Very few white supremacists are going to actively choose a path similar to Narvel Roth in this film. Very few are going to try and atone for what they have done and even fewer would be able to work to deserve forgiveness from someone like Maya. It’s not impossible, but especially in America where hate and violence can be burned into someone’s psyche from before they even attend school; it can seem like an insurmountable task. It could be argued that this film is possibly using Roth as a symbol for white America itself and the lofty goal of a truly healed society free of hatred without burying the past atrocities committed against people of color. Rather than the naive Can’t we all just get along? hand-wringing, Master Gardener tries to address America’s history of hate while still trying to proliferate love. Perhaps a simplistic view of things, but still worthy of being taken seriously.