“Mississippi may be a hate-filled place, but it’s where I came from.”
I’ve reached an age where I’m somewhat set in my ways in regards to music. I have several core artists, albums and songs that I keep coming back to, largely from my teens and 20s, both of which slowly fading into the past. For this and other reasons (singular-focus on cinema, etc.), I’m a little out of touch with the current music scene and even developments going back 10 years or more.
As such, I was completely unfamiliar with the work of folk musician John Murry who after floating among several bands and suffering a near-fatal heroin addiction in the 2000s, burst onto the scene with his 2012 solo album, The Graceless Age of which Irish director Sarah Share’s reflective doc takes its name.
The doc follows Murry who currently resides in Ireland, taking a tour through his former homes and haunts in Mississippi and Tennessee. There he re-connects with some old friends like Jansen Bell, a black man with whom John reflects on the barely-contained racism bubbling under their community growing up. He also seeks out former collaborator Chuck Prophet who sought to help get the self-destructive John clean of heroin.
With much of his family deceased or estranged, the only blood relative John connects with is his teenage daughter Evie as they tour the birthplace of favourite son of the south Elvis Presley. He also spends ample time ruminating on his distant relative William Faulkner, dissecting the polar dichotomy the legendary author represented in the American south.
“For some reason, I breathe a bit easier when I come over the border into Canada…”
John’s travels ultimately end in Toronto where he collaborates on new material with Michael Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies. He is now at a point where he has found some equilibrium in his life, absorbing the ghosts of his trauma and setting off anew as he plays us out in a concert under the end credits.
The Graceless Age paints an intimate portrait of a man on a mission to exorcise his demons by walking straight through them. Murry himself has the countenance of a wizened Josh Ramsay and the timbre of Steven Wright, his near-ASMR effect as he guides us through various signposts of his life. It’s an all-in-all handsome production with the roving camera capably and stylistically capturing every step of the chain-smoking John’s journey alongside some striking animation filling in the parts a camera wasn’t able to capture.
Unfortunately, the doc doesn’t do a magnificent job of giving the audience bearings. I still find myself in the dark of the timeline of John’s life and how he came to be addicted to heroin and so on. The result is a compelling, but fractured picture of a man’s life. A clearer roadmap would have proved helpful.
The Graceless Age ultimately succeeds with its compelling subject even when its presentation falters. Even if it leaves you with an incomplete picture of a troubled artist, it’s enough to encourage you to seek him out.
7/10
The Graceless Age will be available on all major VOD platforms starting on April 9