A MOST VIOLENT YEAR. Isaac and Chastain are Excellent

The most important thing is to be honest. With your wife, with your employees, with your business partners, and with yourself. That is probably Abel Morales’s life motto. The protagonist of A Most Violent Year—the magnificent Oscar Isaac—is the owner of Standard Oil, a company in crisis that supplies fuel. We meet him as he undertakes a very important and risky deal. Morales is purchasing a strategically located piece of land that, in the future, is supposed to multiply his profits and offer prospects for rapid growth. What’s the catch? Abel doesn’t have all the funds needed for the purchase.

He hands over 40% of the total sum in two suitcases to the sellers and has thirty days to gather the rest. On top of that, Morales has been systematically robbed of the gasoline transported in his tankers for some time.

Difficult months lie ahead, and the outlook doesn’t get any brighter. The bank withdraws a guaranteed loan, an armed robber breaks into his apartment, and the district attorney (David Oyelowo) sues him. At home, a disappointed wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), waits for him—disappointed by his lack of decisiveness. Raised by a gangster father, she’s accustomed to a different kind of behavior from men in critical situations, expecting them to reach for a gun and anticipate foul play.

A Most Violent Year has a dense, suffocating atmosphere. New York in 1981 is a bleak and dangerous place. Cinematographer Bradford Young portrays it in shades of yellow and a palette of cool colors. From a technical standpoint, Chandor’s film recalls the most important movies of the 1970s, in which cities themselves were “characters”—from Taxi Driver and Dirty Harry, through Serpico and The Conversation, to The French Connection—depicted as hostile jungles of concrete and steel, where human relationships are forged from the same material. A Most Violent Year is substantial, intelligently constructed cinema, much like those classics.

Thoughtful down to the smallest detail, with excellently written dialogue and two outstanding acting performances. Isaac and Chastain deliver a true showcase, creating a pair of psychologically complex characters who feel convincing and real. Composed of many layers, shaped by different backgrounds and upbringings, taught to live life in different ways—yet together, they seem complete. Working in tandem, they are extraordinarily strong. Chandor demonstrated his remarkable sense of dialogue in Margin Call. In A Most Violent Year, he is equally sharp and precise. Chastain is exceptional when, outraged, she yells at her husband for mishandling the situation after the attempted burglary of their apartment.

Even better is Isaac during a meeting with representatives of the competition, when he commands them to cease attacking his tankers. Every scene with this pair is charged with energy, played with both flair and subtlety.

The ending is also remarkable, casting an entirely new light on the story and the characters’ motivations. Chandor reaches a non-obvious conclusion. In the film’s final scene, Abel Morales changes subtly; there is an unsettling satisfaction in his behavior. It isn’t tied to success or failure—it’s more about simply participating in this life-and-death game, the constant pursuit of cash, the perpetual sense of risk: for himself, for his loved ones, in the awareness of how close disaster is. That awareness becomes the oxygen that keeps him alive; to function, Abel needs to see the precipice before his eyes. Perhaps this is my overinterpretation. Perhaps the scene opens space for individual viewer interpretation. It’s worth seeing for yourself.

There is something fascinating about Abel Morales’s stance—his insistence on fairness. With this unconventional character sketch, J. C. Chandor breaks genre rules. He deliberately challenges expectations by showing that the protagonist will not start emptying a magazine, that he always responds calmly, and that he will not become another gangster—even when circumstances strongly encourage it.

Morales won’t hire a few thugs to physically punish those responsible for his misfortunes. He will politely go from door to door asking for a loan. Morales will not indulge in a vendetta. It’s not his style. And it seemed that everything was leading to this, that the protagonist would finally explode. The greatest value of A Most Violent Year lies precisely in the fact that Abel does not cross certain boundaries.