Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Master Gardener’ on Hulu, Another Subtly Sinister Drama From Master Storyteller Paul Schrader

Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener (now streaming on Hulu) is the third in his loose, informal “Man in a Room” trilogy, so named because his last three protagonists – Ethan Hawke’s minister in First Reformed, Oscar Isaac’s professional gambler in The Card Counter and Joel Edgerton’s horticulturist in Master Gardener – are loners who sit in dark, austere rooms, longhand-journaling in notebooks. Their writing comprises the films’ voiceover narration, which sure feels like an intentional callback to Schrader’s greatest work, the screenplay for Taxi Driver. Perhaps none more so than Gardener, which hones in on a character who seems to have an even greater potential for violence than Travis Bickle. 

MASTER GARDENER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Narvel Roth (Edgerton) is a poet with a hoe and a pair of pruning shears. He waxes eloquently in his journal, detailing the ins and outs of this flower and that flower. There are 38 different kinds of hoes, he reveals, and he doesn’t say it but we just know he knows what each one does, surely in excruciating detail. And that’s exactly why he’s in f—ing charge at Gracewood Gardens, a gorgeous and sprawling Louisiana estate ruled – not just owned, but ruled – by Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Now, Norma doesn’t stomp around barking orders and levying threats, but she has this air about her that you don’t want to puncture, and the floor around her is covered with eggshells, metaphorically speaking, of course. Mind you, Gracewood is not a place for growing turnips and tomatoes, but it’s a purely aesthetic garden where Norma hosts annual charity fundraisers, and I’ll bet you five bucks it used to be a plantation. Tending it takes a handful of people under Narvel’s supervision. It’s all about control, see. Control over people, control over nature. Control.

None of this is explicit, mind you. But it’s ingrained in the tone and setting, in Narvel’s meticulous style and mannerisms. One day, Norma pulls him aside and asks-but-doesn’t-really-ask-because-she’s-actually-demanding him to take an apprentice: Her grand-niece, a 20ish woman of “mixed blood” who’s “fallen in with the wrong crowd.” Her words, not mine, so please read into them, because Schrader’s choosing them carefully. Narvel agrees, and so arrives Maya (Quintessa Swindell). She will learn the art of gardening under his tutelage. Yes, art. You going to debate whether it’s art? Didn’t think so. She’ll do some weeding and planting and Narvel will conduct classes for her and quiz her. On her first day, he illustrates the sumptuousness of loam by urging her to smell it deeply, and he smells it so deeply and nigh-sexually, he squeezes a handful and sticks his face in it and innnnnnhaaaaaalesssssss and emerges spitting dirt from his lips.

One of Narvel’s fellow gardeners appreciates how he’s a romantic when it comes to dirt and seeds and the like. He wasn’t always this way, though. There’s an air about him, too. Dead serious, committed, throwing his entire life into the philosophy of the soil. What’s he hiding in there? His head, I mean? We see him thrashing in bed, tormented by a dream. Meanwhile, we learn that Norma, a couple of weeks after Maya’s arrival, has yet to speak to her grand-niece. They haven’t seen each other in many years. When they finally sit down for lunch together, there’s tension, because Maya is the only one around here who dares push back. Narvel doesn’t seem to ever push back, although he likely could; he knows which side his bread is buttered on, and yes, that’s a euphemism, because we noticed how Norma calls him “sweet pea,” and doesn’t seem to mind that, beneath his overalls and crisp longsleeve shirts, he’s covered with Nazi tattoos.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The intense desire to revisit First Reformed is real (I still assert that Hawke deserved an Oscar). Same goes for American History X (whatever happened to Tony Kaye, by the way?).

Performance Worth Watching: Part of me wishes I’d never considered the subtext that Weaver cultivates in her character – I’m disturbed! Greatly! – which is the mark of a shrewd performance from an old pro. 

Memorable Dialogue: Norma and Narvel sit on her big porch:

Norma: I love the early morning rain. It’s very, uh – what’s the word?

Narvel: Nitrogen oxide. (Pauses) Soulful.

Sex and Skin: Some male and female nudity, mostly in artful silhouette.

Our Take: Master Gardener is another variation on a theme Schrader has explored in some of his best work, including Affliction and Taxi Driver. But where the moral rot that Travis Bickle saw – you’ll recall his famous spiel about washing the scum of the streets – was a product of a country seeking its identity in the 1970s, the firebrand filmmaker’s recent “trilogy” finds him integrating distinctly 21st-century existential threats into his stories. In First Reformed, it was climate change; in The Card Counter, it was the distinct traumatic fallout of modern war. With Master Gardener, Schrader loads the subtext with ideas about power and redemption within the  new era of awareness of institutional racism and inherited privilege. Say what you will about Schrader, but he’s never wavered in his roles as philosopher and provocateur.

Even if Gardener feels ever-so-slightly like the least of the three films, it’s still distinctively Schrader: engrossing, shrewdly written, smartly acted, unsettling in tone and equal parts draconian and beautiful visually. Schrader inspires some dark, dark laughs on occasion, finding comedy in his signature sinister undercurrents; he draws invigorating performances from Weaver and Edgerton as they talk about everything except what we want them to. Without the deeply weird relationship between Norma and Narvel, the film might be a more typical rumination on well-trod subject matter.

Narratively, the plot builds somewhat predictably, teasing revelations about who Narvel was and who he is now, and about who does and doesn’t know about his past, which is the primary source of tension as he and Maya forge an unusual friendship. Schrader uses the idea of gardening to explore the idea of sanctuary, what it is and what it means, and gets thoughtful dramatic traction out of horticulture as a means of both dominating and appreciating nature. One of Master Gardener’s most memorable scenes finds Narvel – and I’m purposely decontextualizing it – brandishing his shears and saying, “I’ve done a lot of pruning in my life,” and that line not only begs for multiple literal and figurative interpretations, but it also compels you to believe all of them. That’s a classic Schrader protagonist for you.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Master Gardener is a riveting drama, and finds Schrader hitting on all cylinders deep into his career. Nearly 50 years after Taxi Driver, he still pushes our buttons and has plenty to say.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.