Trailer
Plot summary
Two companions who share the name Gerry drive a quiet, isolated road through desert brush and stop where a trailhead is marked as wilderness. They set off wearing only the clothes on their backs, plus one spare shirt, and carry no map. They run, smoke, and talk about a thing they mean to reach somewhere ahead, then decide they no longer want to go that far and turn around. The way back is not the way they came, and the two men cannot find the road. Night comes and they build a fire. Days pass as they walk with neither food nor water, at times separating, at times trying to retrace their steps or follow animal tracks, and their irritation with each other grows.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Gerry (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The film was inspired by the real-life murder of David Coughlin, an event Matt Damon brought to Gus Van Sant: Coughlin and his best friend got lost in the desert, and the friend eventually killed him. Van Sant chose not to look up more information, saying "we didn't want to do their story."- Van Sant first planned to shoot Gerry on digital video, saying it would have looked like "a John Cassavetes film in the desert". Casey Affleck persuaded him to use 35 mm film instead, a change Van Sant said altered everything and led him to borrow Béla Tarr's long takes.
- Van Sant first hoped to shoot in Argentina to avoid a possible Actors Guild strike, but it proved colder than expected, and a travel advisory over potential terrorist activity ruled out Wadi Rum in Jordan. The team finally settled on Death Valley, California.
- The film's scant dialogue was not planned: Van Sant expected "a lot of long bits of soul-searching dialogue", but during the shoot that never came to pass, and he called the long silences "our version" of such dialogue.
- Van Sant also cited the video game Tomb Raider as an influence on the style: with little experience of games, he was struck that players cannot cut away from the action, so they stay with the characters through travel that films normally gloss over.
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