Richard Crouse

The suspenseful “The Integrity of Joseph Chambers,” now on VOD, is a dark twist on the “Green Acres” idea of leaving the city behind for a quiet life in the country.

Clayne Crawford plays Joseph Chambers, an insurance salesman tired of the hustle and bustle of big business and big city life. Relocating, with his two kids, to his wife Tess’s (Jordana Brewster) hometown of Pell City in rural Alabama, he embraces country life. The chores. The fresh air. Good bye city life.

When he gets it in his head to go hunting, solo, in the nearby woods, Tess tries to talk him out of it. They have enough money for groceries, she argues, and anyway, he doesn’t know how to shoot and doesn’t own a gun. But old Joe has already trimmed his beard, leaving behind a patch under his nose he dubs his “hunter’s moustache.”

He wants to fit in, prove his manliness, but more importantly, wants to be able to provide for his family if and when the world falls apart. “If things get worse,” he says, “we may need to know how to do this stuff.”

With ideas of doomsday clouding his mind, he borrows a gun and a truck, slips into his hunting gear, including an orange puffer vest, and heads out. Hours later, when he finally spots a deer, he reacts quickly and fires. His bullet finds its target, but it’s not a deer, it’s another hunter.

The story burns slowly, setting up Joseph as a decent but naïve suburbanite desperate to prove his macho bone fides. He brims with bravado—quoting old Westerns like “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and imagining crowds cheering for him on his quest for a ten-point buck—but those affectations are a cover for a deep core of insecurity. The quest here isn’t really for a buck, it’s actually a search for masculinity.

Joseph feels he has much to prove to himself and his family, so “The Integrity of Joseph Chambers” isn’t really the story of the fatal shot, but of his reaction to it. Questions of responsibility vs. consequences flood his mind as the open expanse of the forest envelopes him.

Danish sound designer Peter Albrechtsen embellishes these scenes with unsettling sounds that sonically give life to Joseph’s inner feelings.

Crawford occupies the vast bulk of the movie, and holds focus. His take on Joseph is equal parts ridiculous—he playfully sings “I’m the moustache man!”—and repentant. It’s a raw-edged performance, aided in its grittiness by screenwriter and director Robert Machoian’s refusal to offer easy answers.

“The Integrity of Joseph Chambers” isn’t an easy film to digest. It is very slow and a bit repetitive. It asks more questions than it answers, and will likely frustrate those wanting a pat ending, but it raises interesting questions about the real meaning of masculinity.