In spite of their genre elements, the films are also persuasively life-sized, which means that their disturbing turns hit that much closer to home. “I’m always putting things through the reality filter as much as I can”, he says. “In many ways all the films are very domestic. [W]hen characters are arguing they’re still doing the dishes”.
Edgerton’s scripts excel at putting the screws to their central characters. Even when things get bloody and violent—and they do—he has an ability to make sure that his characters’ actions are situationally and psychologically convincing. He’s got a knack for the grim cause and effect of good-men-gone-bad stories that recalls the Coen Brothers at their cruellest.
Edgerton cites films like the recent revenge thriller Blue Ruin (2013) and In the Bedroom (2001) as having a particular affinity to his work. “One of the things that seems to happen in all of those screenplays is that these characters build up this shit – they end up with so much clutter based on their attempt to get out of their situation in the wrong way, but at the end of the day they’re left to make choices by themselves. Suddenly, all that clutter goes away, all the doors are open, and the police disappear, and accountability from outside disappears, and they’re left with the silence of their own choices, to then decide what to do next. I always found that interesting.”
“Ultimately what I’m trying to say is that at the end of the day our punishment and our judgment come from ourselves. And that’s the worst place it can come from. We can forgive ourselves, we can learn to move forward, but we can also be our own prison.”
Read more at http://junkee.com/with-the-gift-joel-edgerton-becomes-one-of-australias-most-exciting-new-filmmakers/63978#YKQROQC6obIJWBgw.99