No one says a word for the first ten minutes of , Matthew Brown鈥檚 broody, existential take on the culture of Appalachian Trail thru-hikers. Instead听we watch the film鈥檚 two main characters, Bluebird (Laia Costa) and Lake (Thomas Mann), hurl full-bore into the animalistic drudgery of life on the trail: Bluebird emerges from her tent, squats and wipes with a dirty pee rag, then removes and rinses out her well-used menstrual cup; Lake scrapes cold oatmeal from his dented pot and washes his pale chest in an even colder stream. They clamber over split-rail fences, fail to woo Virginia鈥檚 legendary Grayson Highland wild horses, and eventually hole up in a hostel where they lie, still silently, on a hard wooden floor, no doubt questioning what led them to the trail in the first place.
We, meanwhile, are left to puzzle out what led them to one another. It鈥檚 a question that propels much of 惭补颈苍别鈥�s minimalistic plot and also serves as the basis for the film鈥檚 first conversation,听an incredibly awkward, stilted exchange between the hiking duo and a group of other thru-hikers at the hostel.听鈥淎re you听a couple?鈥�听asks one of the backpackers.听鈥淜ind of,鈥� says the puppyishly earnest Lake. 鈥淣ot at all,鈥�听retorts the mercurial Bluebird. Then听she regales the group with stories of how Lake struggles to shit in the woods: 鈥淟ike a goat鈥μ齪lop, plop, plop,鈥� she gleefully reports in a thick听accent. (Both Costa and her character hail from Spain). Meanwhile听Lake looks on, crestfallen to learn she doesn鈥檛 agree that they are a thing.听
Then again, maybe she does. Either way, it鈥檚 complicated. Bluebird, we soon learn, is married. She鈥檚 also an unapologetic hot mess鈥攅rratic, untethered, shifting from maudlin thoughts to sophomoric pranks in the blink of an eye. For his part, Lake serves as the pacific,听hipster yang to her yin鈥攃rooning away on a borrowed acoustic guitar, firing up the camp stove so they can eat, ambling down trails with the beatific resignation of a long-distance hiker. We never really learn how or why they hooked up on the trail. And if there is a narrative arc to , it鈥檚 based in the growing sexual tension between Lake and Bluebird as they alternately fight, wrestle, confide, and kiss their way up the Virginia section of the trail.
鈥淲hat I like about the trail is that it seems like everyone on it is either trying to lose themselves or find themselves,鈥� says director Matthew Brown.
The lives and motivations of people like this duo have always held fascination for director Matthew Brown. A North Carolina native, Brown grew up in the shadow of the Appalachian Trail. Thru-hiking it, he says, was a long-standing childhood dream, but a serious back injury that he sustained at age 16 made that impossible. 鈥�Maine was an opportunity for me to do it through these characters,鈥� he told me by phone from his home in New Mexico. 鈥淚 realized I could live vicariously through their stories.鈥�
More than that, he says, the trail offered the perfect setting for an inquiry into the kind of extreme subjectivity and limited temporality听he says he听likes to tackle in his films. His first full-length feature, ,听released at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival,听followed a group of friends on an overnight road trip to nowhere.听Maine has a similar vibe: far more Before Sunset or Lost in Translation than Into the Wild or Wild.
Brown says he and his team researched the film at the AT鈥檚 Trail Days, an annual three-day bacchanal in Damascus, Virginia. They spent weekends chatting up hikers at road crossings, and Brown says he 鈥淕oogle Earthed the shit out of鈥� the 2,181-mile footpath. 鈥淲hat I like about the trail is that it seems like everyone on it is either trying to lose themselves or find themselves. Some seemed content with that; others were pretty broken down,鈥� says Brown, who is 28. 鈥淟ike a lot of twentysomethings, I feel pretty lost in my own life a lot of the time, and I wanted to explore that sensation, too.鈥�
To achieve that effect, Brown offers a pared-down script deliberately devoid of polish or timing. Most of the scenes feature only Bluebird and Lake, and both Costa and Mann, two rising young stars in the Indie film world, deliver solid performances, particularly in those scenes depicting the more feral aspects of their relationship (and time on the trail). It鈥檚 uncomfortable watching her hawk a loogie into his mouth or listening to him get drunk听on gifted whiskey, but that鈥檚 also what makes the real-time experience of their time together so听real.
Perhaps most important, 鈥槻巡咕辈员疴€櫶齬efuses to placate viewers with dramatic climaxes, proof of self-realization, or tidy conclusions.
The actual filming of Maine (so named because it is the northern terminus of the AT, the intended finishing point for these northbound hikers) took place over 20 days鈥攖wo on the beaches of Hatteras, North Carolina,听for a whimsical opening scene depicting Bluebird swimming, and听18听in southeastern Virginia for the days she spends with Lake on the trail. Filming took place on location and includes the legendary in Pearisburg, as well as a couple of actual thru-hikers who happened to be staying there. Weather was lousy for a lot of it, and the scenes dripping with fog or depicting tents pummeled by a wet wind are some of the most authentic (and beautiful) in the film.
Nevertheless, true hiker trash will no doubt call foul on the little anachronisms throughout the film: aside from a scene where Bluebird and Lake smear each other鈥檚 faces with wild blackberries, they and their cotton clothes are way too squeaky-clean for the trail. There鈥檚 a certain campy Western feel to the way the scenery never really seems to change, no matter how far they walk. Nor does much of the scenery look like anything you鈥檒l find on the actual trail. But getting permits to film on the AT is a bitch鈥攅ven A Walk in the Woods had a hard time coordinating with the National Park Service, which oversees the AT. And while you鈥檒l really want to cake some grime around Bluebird鈥檚 cuticles or see evidence of an actual white blaze in a scene or two, there鈥檚 plenty that the film gets right, from Christian trail magic and naked hikers to the bizarre sensory overload that occurs when you step off the trail and into a megamarket and the euphoria that comes from eating yogurt there.
Perhaps most important, Maine refuses to placate viewers with dramatic climaxes, proof of self-realization, or tidy conclusions. We leave with no more certainty about whether Bluebird and Lake will finish the trail鈥攐r who they鈥檒l be at the end鈥攖han we did at the film鈥檚 start. And when we get to the credits, these two characters are just as flawed and conflicted as they were in the opening scene.
It鈥檚 a bold directorial choice for Brown, and one you have to respect, particularly if you鈥檝e spent any time shouldering a pack. If there鈥檚 one genuine realization to be had out there, it鈥檚 that the trail lays us open, exposes our soft underbelly, and forces us each to behold what is there. In a lot of ways, the willingness to confront that chaos is story enough.