Down in the Valley

Down in the Valley (2005) — watch online on iFILM. Written and directed by David Jacobson, the film stars Edward Norton as Harlan Carruthers, a man who dresses like a cowboy and speaks like one too — in the middle of the San Fernando Valley suburbs, where no ranch has stood for decades.

Teenager Tobe, played by Evan Rachel Wood, meets Harlan at a gas station and is drawn to him immediately. Her father, a cop played by David Morse, is suspicious from the start. Her younger brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) sees a father figure. Harlan seems genuine — and that's exactly what makes him dangerous. The further the story goes, the clearer it becomes that he's not performing the cowboy identity; he actually lives inside it, completely sealed off from consequence.

Norton gives a performance that refuses easy labels: not calculating, not deranged, just lost inside a mythology of himself. It's a film that earns the thriller tag slowly, through intimacy rather than incident. Stream Down in the Valley online on iFILM.