The TV is on, a few cookies on the table, and a poster in the kitchen demanding one to “relax.” A man is in the bathtub, he suddenly tenses, sits up and listens carefully. The owners of the house are back. Helping himself to the comforts of someone else’s home, he quickly gets out through the window and down the drainpipe so he won't get caught. Dwight (Macon Blair) sleeps in a rusted out shell of a car on the beach and collects abandoned bottles and turns them in for cash. The camera follows his daily routines and shows a man with nearly dead eyes living on the margins of society. It is in this state that a female police officer finds him and asks him to come to the police station.
The first part of this smart, noir-thriller is reminiscent of the great gangster films by the likes of Jean-Pierre Melville (THE SAMURAI, THE RED CIRCLE). A criminal is released and the police officer didn’t want Dwight to be alone when he finds out. Dwight’s life has become dangerous, but until he utters one word it’s already halfway through the film.
BLUE RUIN belongs to a new generation of independent genre films that combine classic elements with a new realist style that recalls the ‘kitchen sink realism’ of 1950s and 60s British film and art. Horror films such as THE PACT or ENTRANCE, thrillers like RED, WHITE AND BLUE and science-fiction films like UNDER THE SKIN are some examples. Dwight’s experiences sleeping rough taught him to wear his car key around his neck. This detail plays a role in a suspense-driven scene and BLUE RUIN is pretty damn suspenseful. The great discovery in BLUE RUIN is without a doubt Macon Blair whose Dwight is an unlikely hero. He plays one of those men who one day don’t return after going out to get cigarettes and now no longer have a life to which they could even return. “I’m in this thing”, he says with a shrug – he’s almost a classic hero who knows that classic heroes are long dead and are only born to die. The noir film is back in this sad, blue ruin.

Tom Dorow