Wish I was at Cannes. Here’s FilmStew’s J Sperling Reich…
Over 20 years after the German filmmaker collaborated with renowned playwright Sam Shepard on Paris, Texas, the two reunite for Don’t Come Knocking. This time, though, Shepard actually stars in the film as well. “To have Sam in front of the camera is one of my oldest desires as a filmmaker,” admitted Wenders. “This time I didn’t ask and that was a sneaky thing of me. After a few scenes, he mentioned sort of casually, ‘By the way, I think I can kind of play this.’ So I never had to say I would kill him if he hadn’t.”
Shepard plays Howard Spence, a down-and-out actor best known for his westerns. Well into his middle age, Spence combats his loneliness with plenty of booze, drugs and young women. For no apparent reason, he runs away from the set of the movie he is presently on and heads off to visit his mother in Elko, Nevada. Thing is, he hasn’t seen his mother in 30 years. His mother informs him that a couple of decades back a woman called her looking for him, as she was pregnant with his son. Of course, Spence was unaware of any son, but decides to set out to find him in Montana. He does indeed find Doreen (Jessica Lange), his old flame and the mother of Earl (Gabriel Mann), his son. But Don’t Come Knocking wouldn’t be a Wenders-Shepard film if that were all Spence found in Butte, Montana.