The plight of the American middle-class white male has become the front and center concern for certain American middle-class white males in certain American middle-class white swaths of the country. In their eyes, they did everything right: they got the job, the wife, the kid, the house and yet those no longer guarantee a lifetime of comfort. Many of the afflicted see the problem as those pesky, rape-happy Mexicans, or blacks or illegals or job-eliminating robots. Whatever floats their boat, I guess. For Jim Arnaud, the confused, tightly-wound patrolman in Jim Cummings’ daring, moving Thunder Road, the problem is staring at him in the mirror.
Thunder Road, which won the Grand Prize at the 44th annual Deauville American Film Festival. is an expansion of Cummings’ 2016 short of the same name. A hit at various festivals, it won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. The entire film was an uninterrupted 13-minute take featuring Arnaud’s awkward, tragicomic eulogy for his mother. This feature-length adaptation begins with a variation of that remarkable oner, introducing us to Arnaud and the depths of his emotional fragility. Whether struggling in front of his mother’s casket to get Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road to play on his daughter’s pink boom box or turning a positive story about his mother into a dark and tearful regret, we see a well-meaning fellow who can quickly and suddenly fall into a deep hole of sadness and anger. This is how Jim operates seemingly all the time: waves of negative emotions, and ugly-cry tears, arrive as fast as they recede, as much a surprise to him as they are to the people around him.
His meltdown as his mother’s funeral is quite the one-man show. In fact, the entire film is basically a one-man show, as each lightly-sketched supporting character pulls on another thread of Jim’s remaining ability to cope with his worsening circumstances. Cummings is remarkably vulnerable all the way through. He understands the defense mechanisms we employ to keep the bad thoughts from completely taking over. For Jim, it’s the non-stop rambling, a classic symptom of anxiety disorder. His rage is expressed in vocal gymnastics that include lashing out angrily, apologizing, maybe throwing in an “anywho” to reset his mind, then lashing out again as the anger builds anew. Think early-career Jim Carrey with way less smirk and way more emotional damage.
These episodes aren’t played for laughs but you find yourself reluctantly laughing, maybe out of discomfort or maybe out of recognition. Cummings is so controlled as a performer during these heartbreaking interludes he can walk right to the edge, maybe even lean over, and then return to sanity, before he starts to get showy. It’s a touching, high-wire act and Cummings is boldly assured all the way through.
There’s a reason Thunder Road tells Jim’s story at this particular moment in his life: his life is falling apart. Aside from his mother’s death, he’s going through a divorce with bitchy wife, Roz (Jocelyn DeBoer), who’s also taking him to court to get full custody of their young daughter, Crystal (Kendal Farr). His one friend seems to be sympathetic fellow patrolman Nate (Nican Robinson) but when all the pillars of middle class comfort and security are knocked out from under you, anyone can be the target of your rage.
With his patrolman’s uniform conforming to his rail thin body and his mustache neatly shaped, Jim’s appearance suggests an inner control and desire for order that his outward behavior cannot live up to. Getting fired from the force and ripping his uniform off isn’t just a rage response. Jim is being broken down emotionally, his ripped underpants giving us permission to chuckle not guffaw. But even out of uniform, he can’t help himself. In one effective scene, Jim has an in-person conversation with Crystal’s teacher (Macon Blair) about his daughter’s behavioral issues in class. Jim begins sinking into his defensive rhythms until the teacher notes Crystal’s reading difficulties, which sends the dyslexic Jim into a guilt-riddled fury, lifting up a classroom desk and threatening to throw it across the room. The walls won’t stop closing in on him and his only chance is to acknowledge the layers of self-deception that keep him from escaping a world conspiring against him.
Part of the thrill of Thunder Road is witnessing the out-of-nowhere emergence of Cummings as a fully-formed artist. He has a standup comic’s gait and outwardly easygoing demeanor. But that only adds to the surprise as he repurposes a stand-up’s authenticity and naked honesty and uses them to toy with our expectations and compel us to care for someone we’d otherwise laugh at. Based on Thunder Road, Cummins won’t make it someday; he’s here right now. And he’s holding a mirror.