Beneath the Harvest Sky Review
By David Kempler
Not a Bumper Crop
Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet have turned their attention away from documentary filmmaking with their drama, "Beneath the Harvest Sky". It is a tale centered on two lifelong friends, who at seventeen find themselves at a crossroads in a small town in Maine, close to the Canadian border.
Casper (Emory Cohen) is emotional and headstrong. His buddy, Dominic (Callan McAuliffe), is his more sedate, even-tempered counterpart. They hate their lives in their small town, but see little hope for escaping the inevitability of working on a potato farm and fading into nothingness. They know they want something else out of life but are unsure what would make for a good alternative.
Their immediate and simple goal is to purchase a used sports car and head to Boston to catch a baseball game. It's not much of a plan and it fails to get off the ground when Tasha (Zoe Levin), Casper's girlfriend, tells him that she is pregnant. Casper is not thrilled with this news. Meanwhile, Dominic is showing interest in Emma (Sarah Sutherland), a co-worker in the potato fields. He thinks they might have something special, but she lets him know she is not interested in pursuing a relationship with him.
Casper works for his father, Clayton (Aidan Gillen), who is smuggling in pharmaceuticals from Canada. It's the other family business. When Clayton's brother, Badger (Timm Sharp) is arrested by cops working drug enforcement, the operation unravels pretty quickly. The film similarly falls apart at the seams.
There are a lot of things to like about "Beneath the Harvest Sky", particularly the film's grittiness and feeling of authenticity. Unfortunately that is not enough to keep it all afloat. The potential trumps the final product and the end result falls somewhere beneath where it could have landed.
