"Without Protection" investigates the end of the utopias of the 1960s.
Directed by and starring Robert Redford, "The Company You Keep" is a film about loss: the loss of innocence, dreams, ideals, and identity; it's a deeply melancholic work, and it couldn't be otherwise.
SAO PAULO, May 23 (Reuters) There's a scene in "The Company You Keep," the new film directed by and starring Robert Redford, that's quite revealing. He talks to a colleague he hasn't seen in a long time, and they discuss their past, when they were both part of the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing group active in the US in the 1960s.
Sadly, Jed (Richard Jenkins), a university professor, comments: "The students adore me, they listen to my stories, clap, and then update their Facebook status." After that, the two conclude: "We've become like parents to each other."
The other participant in this dialogue is Jim Grant (Redford). For more than three decades, he hid his true identity, Nick Sloan, became a lawyer, got married and had a daughter, now just over 10 years old, and was widowed.
Another member of the group was Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), whose destiny also includes marriage and children. Other Weathermen, as they were known, appear in Grant's path, and, sadly, it is concluded, paraphrasing the famous verse, they are still the same and live like their parents.
And it is amidst this climate of conformity—or maturation, as one prefers to call it—that Grant's life is shaken when Sharon is arrested for the death of a bank guard during a robbery by the group.
Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), a reporter for a failing newspaper, begins investigating the case and discovers that the lawyer is actually the other accused in the crime.
To avoid being arrested, Grant leaves his daughter with his brother (Chris Cooper) and begins a heist, while the FBI, led by Agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard), pursues him.
The protagonist believes that a former guerrilla partner can prove his innocence, and his obsession becomes the search for this woman, Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie). But the two were not just colleagues in their ideals; they were a couple in love.
Looking back to the past represents for Grant/Sloan a reunion with figures he hasn't seen in decades. And, each settled into their new life, they have abandoned the ideals they fought for – except for Mimi, the most enigmatic and interesting character in the film, the only one who remains consistent with what she has always defended. The price paid, however, as she herself makes clear, is high; by her own count, she has already changed her identity about six times.
Redford casts people of his generation in the central roles, whose figures bear the marks of time. The counterpoint is the unscrupulous, self-serving, and manipulative young reporter, devoid of dreams and brimming with ambition, who even uses an ex-girlfriend (Anna Kendrick), who works for the FBI, to obtain information and interview Sharon.
"Without Protection" is a film about loss: the loss of innocence, dreams, ideals, and identity. It's a rather melancholic work, and it couldn't be otherwise.
Redford, the director, for his part, never strays from the human side of his characters. It is precisely the contradictions that make these characters sound real. There are no martyrs, no heroes, just people fighting for what they believe in.
Even when they fail, they resign themselves to what the present can offer them, even if it has almost nothing to do with what they dreamed of.
(By Alysson Oliveira, from Cineweb)
* The opinions expressed are the responsibility of Cineweb.