Slow West (15)
dir: John Maclean
In the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, John Cusack calmly announces to his colleagues at a Chicago record shop that he will sell five copies of the album The Three EPs by the Beta Band. He then proceeds to play their song “Dry the Rain” over the shop’s speakers and to make good on his prediction. This formerly revered Scottish band, which broke up in 2004, is rarely spoken of these days, but at least one member, John Maclean, is doing fine. Slow West, his debut as a writer-director, is every bit as wry, rootsy and idiosyncratic as anything the Beta Band recorded.
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