​Time Out Of Mind, film review: Richard Gere gives one of his best performances

(15) Oren Moverman, 117 mins. Starring: Richard Gere, Jena Malone, Ben Vereen

A passive figure: Richard Gere in ‘Time Out of Mind’

Oren Moverman's observational drama about the day-to-day life of George (Richard Gere), a homeless man in New York, is made with delicacy and insight. The film-makers opt for a documentary-like style. George is seen through doorways and windows, looking ever more bewildered as he tries to negotiate a place to stay and to work out how he has made such a mess of his life. The sound editing is extraordinary. Wherever George goes, there is the noise of cars, sirens, street fights and commotion.

The film isn't above a certain sentimentality. George is prey to self-pity. There are references to the loss of his wife and the break-up of his family. The scenes with his estranged daughter (Jena Malone) are milked for pathos. At times, as George is befriended by a fellow down and out (Ben Vereen), the film seems to be turning into a buddy movie akin to Of Mice and Men or Jerry Schatzberg's Scarecrow.

Gere, though, gives one of his best recent performances. He is a passive figure, basking in a sense of victimhood and looking in at a world that seems to have no place for him. Without a passport or birth certificate, he is in a Kafka-esque situation in which he struggles to convince the authorities he exists.

At a time when other leading actors of his generation (notably Robert De Niro) caricature themselves in half-baked comedies, Gere is prepared to push himself and take roles that make demands on him. As an old man on society's margins, he is a long way from the gilded narcissists he played in films such as Looking for Mr Goodbar or American Gigolo.