While the star and filmmaker professed that much of the filming took place on the New York City streets during the day, when Gere was in costume, no one seemed to recognize him nor cared to be very close to him. Adopting a distinct, original perspective by placing a very displaced and stagnant George (Gere) amongst the bustling and busy city of New York, along with its people, shining street lights and fast-paced tempo, George's isolation as well as self-deprecated demeanour is always seen and understood from a distance without ever really getting too close. Moverman, along with director of photographer Bobby Bukowski (who seemed to have more films at TIFF this year than the Weinstein brothers), achieve excellence in the visual style of filmmaking for Time Out of Mind. Once the audience gets over the bizarre casting choice of Gere in the lead role, we are able to observe, as Moverman does, the bigger picture. More like a prison than a home, George finds minor solace once he befriends a seasoned homeless man Dixon (Ben Vereen) as well as various opportunities to re-connect with his daughter Maggie (Jena Malone). Down on his luck and left with nothing after the death of his wife, George, barely fighting off the frigid temperatures of the Big Apple after being kicked out of a dilapidated apartment, finds refuge in one of the few temporary housing projects found within the concrete jungle. An American acting master and icon known for his more debonair roles, Gere covers himself in rags and abandons the riches to play George, a man who describes his existence as one, big life-long quarrel. Barely walking the streets of New York City, drunk, humiliated and decrepit, Gere embodies to the best of his abilities the 'typical bum'. One of the first and more interesting details that draws our attention to the film is the choice to cast Richard Gere as George a dishevelled and drunk homeless man.
What draws the film to the territory of deep pain and sentiment is the process in which the film so obviously takes to deliver a multi-layered understanding of the most unnoticed population of society. Time Out of Mind is a fairly simple film, with an easy to follow premise. Paying great attention to visual style as well as sonic and narrative elements of his films, the director offers an observational cinematic piece that is both powerfully empathetic and transformative for the perception of an unwanted and disconcerting part of society. It is no surprise that Moverman is being recognized as one of America's foremost independent filmmakers in a short period of time. Five years later, and after his sophomore feature Rampart, Moverman returns to the screen with Time Out of Mind, a film that showcases another unglamourous reality of Western society homelessness. Blending subtle realities of the peculiarities of individual family traditions with the overly-patriotic mentality of American society, the film was a deliverance of cinematic importance and high entertainment. In 2009, director Oren Moverman created one of the most relevant and moving post-9/11 war films of our generation with The Messenger.
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