Prince Avalanche

This low-key comedy drama is set in Texas in the late 1980s and focuses on two social misfits as they undertake the lonely and tedious job of repainting lines in the middle of desolate rural highways. Alvin (Paul Rudd) is a deep thinker, striving to better himself by learning languages in the hope of one day travelling abroad, while his girlfriend's younger brother, Lance (Emile Hirsch), is more concerned with partying and chasing women on the weekends. Not much happens over the hour-and-a-half running time, with writer/director David Gordon Green training his camera on the meandering conversations between the two leads, highlighting their differing goals that seem to be forever just out of reach. The comedy is delicate and understated, relying mostly on the unspoken failings of both men, with Rudd especially convincing as the would-be intellectual trapped in menial labour to support his young family.