Film Review: ‘Mending the Line’
R | 2h 2m | Drama, Military, Sport | June 9, 2023
My brother was an excellent fly-fisherman. He started tying flies when he was 10 years old. It looked too boring to me. But I’ve now read every book by fly-fishing author John Gierach for purposes of learning from and enjoying outstanding writing—as well as to bask in venerable, ex-hippie, rustic, Colorado mountain Americana—and letting Gierach’s life metaphors meticulously gathered from a lifetime of fly-fishing wash over me like a trout stream. I highly recommend his 23 books.
“Mending the Line” is a post-war military story that follows the typical narrative structure of the subgenre. It features the evergreen topics: wartime ethics, how America treats its war veterans, post-traumatic stress disorder, rehab back into civilian life, survivor’s guilt, and more. We’ve all seen these things portrayed a million times, which can lead to fatigue, but “Mending the Line” adds fly-fishing as a panacea to all of the above, and therefore works regardless.
‘Mending the Line’
John Colter (Sinqua Walls), a Marine recently returned from Afghanistan, is the sole survivor of a troop decimated in an ambush. It was part of a mission that he, in a leadership position, signed off on against the premonitions of his warrior brothers.
He arrives at a rehab center based in Montana that focuses on physical and mental health. Knowing nothing else and fully embracing the Marine ethos, Colter wants nothing more than to return to active duty, and he works extremely hard in physical therapy. However, due to his heavy drinking, hair-trigger temper, and massive denial, group therapy is challenging, especially his feelings about the group therapy leader never having experienced combat.
Meanwhile, across the hall, Ike Fletcher (Brian Cox), a Vietnam-era Recon Marine, is listening to his doctor lecture to him about being no longer able to go fly-fishing by himself, due to his worsening condition.
Dr. Burke (Patricia Heaton) advises Colter to sign up for some fly-fishing lessons from Ike. The win-win is that Ike will now be supervised, and Colter will have a one-on-one opportunity with a fellow warrior to commence his mental journey out of PTSD.
In the classic way of the redemption arc story, these two currently and formerly dangerous men don’t get along, and the active-duty warrior versus grumpy-old-man warrior hostility bristles. Which is always kinda fun.
It’s apparent from the outset that fly-fishing, of course, is Ike’s true love as well as the source of his never-ending therapy. And once both men lower their guards and allow each other into their respective worlds, a reluctant and heartwarming brotherhood forms between the two veterans. Semper Fi, after all.
Lucy
Lucy (Perry Mattfeld) is a young woman who quit her passion for photography to work at the local library and volunteer at the VA. She’s struggling with the motorcycle death of her fiancé two years prior.
Lucy and Colter meet cute when Ike, as part of Colter’s fly-fishing instruction, orders him to do some reconnaissance and immerse himself in fly-fishing literature. There’s more great literature on the topic than any other sport, as Ike attests.
Lucy isn’t really treated like a supporting character or love interest but more like a third lead. While her story is worth telling, dedicating a third of the film to it only slows the film down overall and doesn’t really allow the audience to bond with the two Marines.
Will They All Heal Via Fly-Fishing?
Like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-San karate in “The Karate Kid,” Ike teaches Colter to fish by making him do everything but fish. Such as inventorying the stock and unloading boxes at the fishing store. There are tactical operations, and there’s boot camp. This is boot camp, he explains.
Colter is, naturally, immensely frustrated. But Harrison (Wes Studi) explains his old buddy: Ike can’t drink anymore, doesn’t go to the movies, watch TV, or, of course—date. Ike’s got no friends, and he hasn’t listened to music “since Creedence broke up in ’72.” All Ike has is fly-fishing, so it’s an understandably special source of holiness for him. Ike thanks the rainbow, brown, and brook trout he catches, before releasing them.
Music
The one thing that almost ruins “Mending the Line” is the sappy, stereotypically treacle-y, tear-jerk-y score. Some filmmakers should have a score committee contractually attached to them to ensure they don’t ruin their own movie with subpar music.
All in all, though, “Mending the Line’s” message of finding healthy ways of staying grounded in order to get through a difficult time is always worth demonstrating and celebrating. And the concept that the whole point of the meditative tranquility found on a fly-fishing river is that one needs to learn to take that into everyday life. This is probably the most important concept that exists for human beings.
‘Mending the Line’
Director: Joshua Caldwell
Starring: Brian Cox, Sinqua Walls, Perry Mattfeld, Wes Studi, Patricia Heaton
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Release Date: June 9, 2023
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
