Summer weekends are going to settle in. They may well get you thinking about a nice drive from the city, to take in a bit of the country. It's out here that you might come across a road crew, like the fictional pair leading Prince Avalanche (David Gordon Green, 2013).
II.
Alvin (Paul Rudd) is the boss in the pair, and you do get the feeling that Alvin would right your error quickly were you to assume him the subordinate. He does his job, projects correctness, and models good nature survival skills.
Lance (Emile Hirsch) is all loose where Alvin's uptight. He's mostly preoccupied with partaying, and the pursuit of the opposite sex. As Lance is out there on the road without actual contact to partying and women, Alvin becomes the lone audience for his ruminations on these subjects.
Together, Alvin and Lance have the job of doing minor repairs on a road running through a Texas state park. They do their work, camp, and Alvin writes letters (the year is 1988) to his fiancee, a woman who also happens to be Lance's older sister.
The pair's solitude is broken by encountering an elderly couple (who may or may not be a couple; who just may not want to admit being a couple). The man (Lance LeGault) is a truck driver, and brash in a genial way. Very amusing is the scene, for example, where he abruptly swats Lance's portable stereo aside like an annoying insect, to clear a seat for himself.
III.
Prince Avalanche has the various designs of a minimalist indie comedy. But in its treatment of themes like love and understanding, the film suggests the possibility of a broader, maximal resolution. The viewer will have to decide what to make of that missing resolution, or even if they register such an absence.
