LEAVES OF GRASS (2010) (***1/2)

Most film fans will know Tim Blake Nelson as an actor, particularly from the Coen Brothers' O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, THE GOOD GIRL or THE INCREDIBLE HULK. As a director he made the harrowing Holocaust film THE GREY ZONE and the teen rendition of OTHELLO, O. Now he combines the comedy of his acting roles to the smarts of his directing work. Few drug-themed comedies contain philosophical interludes about the nature of life and God and fewer yet are named after Walt Whitman poems. So you can expect something different going in.

Bill Kincaid (Edward Norton, THE INCREDIBLE HULK) is a philosophy professor at Brown, who lecturers his students on the nature of randomness in life. The problem is that he doesn't practice what he preaches. He has everything planned out. But plans never work out the way they were planned… as we know. While he's wrapped up in a sex scandal with a student, he is called back to his home in Oklahoma with the news that his twin brother Brady (also Norton) has died. Bill hasn't been home in years.

The death is just a ruse concocted by Brady to get Bill to come back home. He has two reasons. One he wants Bill to visit their hippie mother Daisy (Susan Sarandon, BULL DURHAM) at the old folks home, where she's the hottest lady around. The other motive is a bit more selfish. Brady needs Bill to pose as him in the State while he travels with his best friend Bolger (Nelson) to meet with his drug funder Pug Rothbaum (Richard Dreyfuss, JAWS), who has the cover of being a stand-up Jewish leader.

Norton does a marvelous job of creating two unique characters. It is a credit to both him and Nelson that Brady is not a redneck hick cliché. His hydroponic system for growing marijuana is a thing of genius. Just because Bill has lost his Southern accent and has read a few more books doesn't mean he's "better" than his brother. Just listen to Brady's thoughts on God and tell me this "hick" doesn't have some ideas in his head. For Brady the drug biz was his best option in the place where he lived. Now his girlfriend Colleen (Melanie Lynskey, HEAVENLY CREATURES) is pregnant and he's keeping his promise to get out of the drug business before the baby is born. He thinks fondly of his youth with his brother and misses having him around, while Bill has tried to pretend those days never existed.

As the story unfolds, Bill learns very quickly that planning every aspect of your life out is foolish. Chaos is inevitable. Brady might not be dumb, but he doesn't always make the best decisions. In this chaos comes Ken Neuwald (Josh Pais, A BEAUTIFUL MIND), an orthodontist Bill meets on the plane who turns into an agent of chaos; Janet (Keri Russell, WAITRESS), a school teacher Bill wished he would have had when he was in school; and Rabbi Zimmerman (Maggie Siff, MICHAEL CLAYTON), who believes the world is broken and we are here in order to fix it.

Nelson has made an intelligent film. Sometimes his ideas weigh down the flow or seem like inserted speeches, but everything naturally comes from his characters. The relationship between brothers is complex and compelling. One could also include the slow Bolger in that as well. He's been more of brother to Brady than Bill has. The best part is that Nelson lets the film go where it needs to go. While there is a tight structure apparent in the plotting, it's hard to see the same film done in the confines of a studio system allowed to end as it does. Bittersweet.