Don't Come Knocking

If "Paris, Texas" had a sense of humor and a roguish heart, it might have turned out something like "Don't Come Knocking."

Two decades after director Wim Wenders and writer Sam Shepard spun their moody, meandering road trip of family reclamation with "Paris, Texas," they're at it again in a lighter vein.

"Don't Come Knocking" is another meandering road trip, with a heart often as big as the vast empty West in which it's set but a story loaded down by circumstances, encounters and exchanges entirely too convenient to feel credible.

The inelegant patchwork of its plotting may have resulted from the long, circuitous manner in which Wenders and Shepard developed the tale. They started with the characters and let the story grow bit by bit from them, Shepard writing a scene, kicking it over for Wenders to read, then moving on to the next segment after they had consulted.

The story, what there is of it, grew in fits and starts, and while it must have seemed an organically evolved tale to Wenders and Shepard, what's on screen plays out in a muddled manner that can be puzzling and perturbing.

It's a testament to the raw energy of Shepard's dialogue, the homey warmth of Wenders' direction and the earthy power of most of the performances that "Don't Come Knocking" still resonates so strongly and ends on such a satisfying note.

Shepard, who resisted Wenders' urgings to play the starring role Harry Dean Stanton eventually took in "Paris, Texas," this time does take the lead, playing Howard Spence, a fading movie star who once was the modern king of the Western.

As the film opens, Howard runs out on his latest production, leaving the movie crew in the lurch and setting an insurance bondsman (Tim Roth) on his trail to bring him back and finish the shoot.

Howard's led a life of prima-donna debauchery, but why he's grown so fed up at this particular point that he has to decamp is one of the many little mysteries Wenders and Shepard decide to leave hanging.

If Howard's abrupt road trip seems an artificial way to launch into a story, so too are the pit stops he makes. Out of the blue, he decides to visit his mother (Eva Marie Saint, in a sprightly turn) who greets him with bizarrely matter-of-fact composure even though they've been out of touch for 30 years.

From mom, Howard learns he may have a son he never knew (and doesn't it seem as though there's a lot of that going around, after "Broken Flowers" and "Transamerica"?).

So Howard's off to Butte, Mont., where he reunites with an old love (Jessica Lange, Shepard's real-life romantic partner) and tries to connect with his boy, Earl (Gabriel Mann), a surly musician who wants nothing to do with him.

Also crossing paths with Howard is Sky (Sarah Polley), a young woman bearing the ashes of her recently deceased mother. Sky, who has her own mysterious connection to Howard, wanders about with almost catatonic equanimity, and the fact that she has come to town at the precise moment Howard turns up is another instance where Wenders and Shepard seem to force the story.

Yet Polley's mix of wisdom and fragility make Sky the soul of the film, her sweetly wistful optimism forging the beginnings of kinship among strangers who never knew they wanted or needed family.

Unfortunately, Earl is too much the raving whiner for most of the film, Mann going over the top from the start and not really settling down until it's too late to care much about his character. Likewise, Fairuza Balk as Earl's girlfriend is a screechy, griping presence early on, too caricatured to evoke empathy.

Even-keeled through most of the film, Lange has one magnificently performed exchange with Shepard, in which the actress rages, pines, reproaches and wilts in the space of a single scene.

Roth does a fine job wringing sly moments of humor from his role as the stoic pursuer, the modern equivalent of the always-in-control lawman chasing the unruly outlaw.

And Shepard brings a rascally cheeriness to Howard, making this pampered hedonist we have no cause to like strangely likable.

Cinematographer Franz Lustig captures a sense of the West's lonely grandeur that again makes "Don't Come Knocking" a real bookend to "Paris, Texas."

Wenders, whose ear for music is as keen as his eye for images, makes another inspired choice here, with T Bone Burnett crafting a spare rootsy score that proves a worthy companion to the "Paris, Texas" arrangements created by Ry Cooder.