Master Gardener

• Director: Paul Schrader
• Writer: Paul Schrader
• Starring: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell

Grade: B+

Stop me if you’ve seen this one before: a hollow shell of a man, sitting alone in a mostly empty room, writing in a journal, accompanied by a voiceover narration. Yes, you’re watching a Paul Schrader film – more specifically, you’re watching Master Gardener, the third film in Schrader’s unofficial “man in a room” trilogy. The first was the excellent First Reformed, starring Ethan Hawks and dealing with a man’s crisis of faith in a doomed world. The second was 2021’s The Card Counter with Oscar Isaac as a gambler hiding from the world and his past. Now, with Master Gardener, Joel Edgerton stars as a man caught between his regretful past and his future.