Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Ryan Reynolds, Yvonne Landry
Directors: Anna Bode, Ryan Fleck
Genre: Drama
Rated: M
Running Time: 109 minutes
Synopsis: In this lively, freewheeling road movie, Ben Mendelsohn plays Gerry, a talented but down-on-his-luck gambler whose fortunes begins to change when he meets Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), a younger, highly charismatic poker player. The two strike up an immediate friendship and Gerry quickly persuades his new friend to accompany him on a road trip to a legendary high stakes poker game in New Orleans. As they make their way down the Mississippi River, Gerry and Curtis manage to find themselves in just about every bar, racetrack, casino, and pool hall they can find, experiencing both incredible highs and dispiriting lows, but ultimately forging a deep and genuine bond that will stay with them long after their adventure is over.
Co-starring Sienna Miller and from the directors of Half Nelson, Mississippi Grind is a film about friendship, family and the paths we sometimes unexpectedly find ourselves on.
Mississippi Grind
Release Date: Exclusively at Cinema Nova from December 10th, 2015
Director Statement
It's hard for us to believe, but it was over ten years ago now that we brought a film to Sundance for the first time. It is the place where we made our initial tentative steps into this film world, first with our shorts, then later on with our first feature Half Nelson. Every time we've traveled to the festival, we've come back inspired by some new film or filmmaker, encouraged to keep at it. That is way we feel that it is really meaningful to be back at the fest with Mississippi Grind. It's a movie inspired by the films that got us excited about filmmaking in the first place.
Mississippi Grind was absolutely inspired by those great films from the 70s "Five Easy Pieces, Scarecrow, The Last Detail, California Split, Midnight Cowboy… These are the movies that we first discovered together when we were just starting to think about making films. At the time that we began writing Mississippi Grind, we had been struggling to get another film made" a sprawling New York ensemble drama, which proved challenging to pull together with so many moving pieces and key roles to cast. So out of the frustration of trying to get that film off the ground, we went back to those movies from the 70s. Like comfort food. And we decided, let's write a movie that captures that kind of fun, loose spirit… something that we can make on a dime if we have to. So we took a road trip from Iowa to New Orleans, just like our characters do, and the writing came out of being inspired by the places and people we met along the way. Like some of the other films we have done, this film is interested in flawed characters trying to do better. But in Mississippi Grind, the characters' journey embraces a certain magic in the world that none of our other films have really explored.
In Mississippi Grind, Gerry is an out of luck gambler and poker player who is just about at the end of his rope when he meets this charming, dynamic free spirit. He immediately sees something almost magical in Curtis and decides this guy is his lucky charm. So their relationship starts off like that… two boys who like playing in the sandbox together. Of course as they get to know each other, things get more complicated and they stop playing so nice. But there's a real affection between them, which both characters seem to need.
Mississippi Grind
Release Date: Exclusively at Cinema Nova from December 10th, 2015
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