Where to Land

Hal Hartley’s first new film in a decade is a melancholy farce about mortality and what we’ll call “late middle-age”. Hartley regular Bill Sage plays a semi-retired New York filmmaker who inadvertently creates concern among his friends and family when he volunteers as a groundskeeper for a nearby cemetery. His intimates know he’s been expecting medical test results and drawing up a will, so they assume he’s talking to the priest for an entirely different reason. As always with Hartley, because talk is cheap there’s a lot of it, and it’s prime, juicy, philosophical and funny… Funny because people don’t express themselves this way in real life, yet what they say is invariably rich and interesting and true.

What a beautiful movie is Where To Land, crisp, brisk, wry—a comedy that’s taut yet discursive. Discernibly and distinctively a Hal Hartley movie… The diction is immaculate, the delivery impeccable, philosophical musings flow like water. Hartley’s better than ever.

Ray Pride, New City Film

In an age of brain-lacerating tech and herdlike algorithmic group-think, Hartley stands out in ever-greater contrast as a quietly intransigent auteur force.

Kevin Khara, Vice magazine

The film’s wistful, sincere, and never maudlin contemplation of impermanence and mortality suggest an artist in a reflective mood, trying to imagine what the world will look like after he’s gone. While it’s readily identifiable as a Hartley creation—featuring three of his favorite actors and the expected visual and musical trademarks—Where to Land isn’t a rehash or a revival. It feels of-the-moment without being topical, familiar but not stale. There’s something comforting about an artist so consistent in his predilections who still demonstrates growth over time.

Seth Katz, Slant magazine