• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Mar 02, 2021 By Jeremy Arblaster Web Exclusive

“The world just exploded in our faces.”

To say I was blown away by Tim O’Brien’s writing when I first read it would be an understatement. Tasked with reading In The Lake of the Woods at University as part of my course, I was stunned by O’Brien’s ability to weave in suitable quotes – from Thomas Pynchon to ex-Presidents – with his own pieces of fictional ‘evidence’, all in support of his story and the trauma of the Vietnam War. It is this war, perhaps the most damaging military excursion by the United States of the 20^th Century, and one in which O’Brien himself fought in, that has provided the author with the haunting experiences that make up his library of brilliant and damning novels on the war.

But at the time of this documentary’s filming, it has been nearly 15 years since writing his last novel (July, July-2002), and in the years since the US has entered into two more brutal conflicts with no real end in sight. And whilst the United States went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan with much the same naïveté as they had done 40 years earlier in Vietnam, O’Brien was somewhat busy with his new charge, one of being a father. It is perhaps fatherhood then, that becomes the main focus of this slightly muddled documentary.

Much of the footage of O’Brien at home centres on his relationship with his two young boys, who he became a father to in his late 50s, and subsequently now lives with the nagging thoughts that he might not live long enough to see them fully bloom. The documentary captures the difficulty of being a writer, a person so deeply involved and invested in their work, whilst life happens around them (and frequently gets in the way).

“All the crap you have to do just to keep a family going” he comments at one time.

But this remark is one of the few examples of his heavy, depressive voice coming to the fore. What we see more of is how caring and genuine this father of two can be, to two sons who seem to have little idea what it was their father went through, and why this man is so revered. The book he’s working on will become 2019’s Dad’s Maybe Book, a memoir of sorts filled with all the things he wants to say to his two sonsas they grow up. A tender, funny and heartfelt piece of work.

It’s not quite the book I imagine O’Brien fans were expecting after a long hiatus from writing. Especially given the sheer mania of the last 15 years for the USA both at home and abroad. But the documentary gives us glimpses into his thoughts on the lack of outrage over the wars in the Middle East, and his bewilderment that young men still want to go to ‘war’. “Why are we here? What are we accomplishing? It’s sad”

But for a writer so adept at linking present actions to past trauma, the documentary is disappointingly scattergun. Some of the references back to the war feel jarring and as a whole, the documentary lacks cohesion and flow. How can you truly capture the history of the war and O’Brien’s place in it, whilst also showing him at his son’s pick-up game?

And though much of the same anger that fuelled O’Brien’s vicious condemnation in novels like The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato is still apparent, the clips of his speeches tend to fall a little flat. At times he appears disillusioned with the lack of change and his own inability in making an impact. “Sentences don’t do shit”.

The documentary as a whole is ambitious. Trying to show the essence of a man who fought for his country during one of the world’s most controversial conflicts at a time of immense change, who then went onto become a National Book Award-winning author and lastly, a father in less than 90-minutes is admirable, but perhaps destined to fail. O’Brien is a truly fascinating giant of American literature, but this film doesn’t quite do him justice.

Author rating: 4/10