Master Gardener (2023 in Spain)

Summary: Narvel Roth is the man in charge of the Gracewood Gardens, an estate owned by Mrs Haverhill. He carries out Mrs Haverhill’s instructions and is her occasional lover. He leads a well ordered somewhat spartan life, which changes when Mrs Haverhill asks him to take on as an apprentice a young woman, Maya, who is her great niece the result of the mixed race marriage of her sister’s daughter. We find through flashbacks that Narvel is actually in witness protection being a former white supremacist, and when Maya is assaulted by her drug dealer Narvel meets with his handler to try to get legal action taken. Mrs Haverhill and her great niece do not get on, and when the young woman tries to seduce Narvel and he walks away, he is seem by Mrs Haverhill and told to leave. With Maya and Narvel on the run things have to come to a head.

Content: There is a bit of sex and silhouetted nudity decorously presented, and we see Narvel’s fascist tattoos when he takes his shirt off. The flashbacks show him involved in violence as part of an extremist group. He does not choose to shoot a black mother with her daughter. Mostly Narvel is actually giving instructions to his under gardeners, or writing what appears to be a volume of guidance on gardening. He has meetings with Mrs Haverhill, but we are spared their more intimate moments. When he and Maya leave the gardens they stay in motels together and the their dealing with the drug people has violent repercussions.

A View: This was a low budget outing, but even so seems unlikely to cover its quite moderate costs. Some aspects of the presentation seemed just a bit confusing. When Narvel was a white supremacist he seemed to have shot a lot of people. When Maya joined the gardeners she lived somewhere else and was picked up by a big car a the end of the day.  Mrs Haverhill did not have much furniture in her mansion, although she had jellyfish wallpaper. So this could be an art-house outing – almost, but actually it is not memorable or fun.

Some films about witness protection reviewed on this site include: Bird on a Wire, Sicario: Day of the Soldado and the fun We’re the Millers.