Review of “The Card Counter”, Paul Schrader and his obsessions with Oscar Isaac | WritingCinema

Paul Schrader’s cinema is permeated by a blanket of pessimism. For him, the mistakes of the past force the protagonist to fail again and again in his attempts to obtain a second chance. The past always comes back and sooner or later sins must be paid for.

Guilt hangs over the backs of its protagonists like a huge cross. “Every poker player can attend the table in disguise, but when he throws the cards his soul is revealed” says William Till (Oscar Isaac, who claims to be one of the best actors of his generation for his versatility and intensity). The character was in hell, or at least that is how he describes the illegal prison where he officiated as a torturer, committing acts that, said by himself, are unjustifiable. After serving his legal sentence, he still has to serve his spiritual sentence, so he wanders like a ghost through the casinos playing cards, with the ability to count them, acquired in prison.

When Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a boy whose father was William’s classmate, shows up, the past returns. Cirk asks for his help to kill Major John Fat (Willliam Dafoe), who transformed them into ruthless torturers, and also lives happily without being condemned for his actions. William intends to raise money on a tour of the casinos, with the help of La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), to redirect the avenging boy’s life and thus forgive himself for his stormy past.

The film is like his character, slow, meticulous, obsessive, sparing and cold. Question that subtracts narrative fluidity from the story and plunges it into a dense and dark lethargy. Schrader has expressed the need to remove the second chance constructed by Hollywood genres. The “gambling movie” proposes the metaphor of “the play of fate” so that the character can reinvent himself thanks to chance and fortune. Although this does not happen in the card counter (The Card Counter, 2021), where the blow of fate is always to the protagonist’s jugular. The erratic attempts of the sinner to obtain the desired salvation end up being in vain.

The film produced by Scorsese and presented at the Venice Film Festival is a new incursion by Schrader into the subject. The variety of trades of his characters (taxi driver, priest, card player) is an excuse to delve into the different universes and delve into his recurring obsession with the subject.