The Walker (2007)

Een mannelijke escort (Woody Harrelson) maakt het leven van oudere society dames wat draaglijker. Terwijl hij zich steeds dieper in het wereldje van zijn klanten werkt, begint hij zijn leven en carriere te overdenken. Hijzelf is inmiddels ook niet meer de jongste, en hij begint zich af te vragen of dit wel het werk is dat hij wil blijven doen.

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Director Paul Schrader (AMERICAN GIGOLO, AFFLICTION) has often described himself as making films with two characters: a man and his room. In THE WALKER, his lonely man is Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson), a charming social accessory in the Capote vein, escorting the wives of high-powered politicians to society gatherings and offering witty rejoinders at the appropriate moment. Dressed in a peacock's assortment of tailored suits, Carter attends an exclusive, trash-talking canasta game with the wilting wives of D.C. power brokers: queen bee Natalie Van Miter (Lauren Bacall), old vet Abigail Delorean (Lily Tomlin),...
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and newcomer Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas). It is not unimportant that Carter, the prodigal son of a famed Southern politician, is gay and living in a city controlled by a right-wing administration. Indeed, it is Washington D.C. that provides Schrader's stifling "room," a landscape where everyone has an angle, sympathies change in a heartbeat, and lives are ruined with a whisper. The film's plot is set into motion when Carter chauffeurs Lynn to a sexual rendezvous with a Washington lobbyist; she discovers him dead, perforated by stab wounds. Fearing scandal, Carter covers up for her and soon finds himself under the spotlight of an investigation. Hounded by a self-righteous, ambitious D.A., Carter begins probing the matter himself with the help of his photographer boyfriend, a decision that puts both their lives in peril.

A compelling character study disguised as a thriller, THE WALKER is anchored by Harrelson's brilliant and nuanced performance of the superficial (but exactly how superficial?) Carter Page III, and the perfect casting of Bacall and Tomlin as career wives. Though eminently watchable for its twists and turns, the film's more lasting impression is its intriguing tapestry of insular, double lives.
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With The Walker, Paul Schrader unofficially updates themes and tropes first explored by his controversial erotic thriller American Gigolo (1980). Woody Harrelson stars as Carter Page III, an overtly gay Virginia senator's son, paid as an asexual escort of middle-aged women in the upper-crust circles of Washington, D.C. Carter's regular clients include three politicos' wives: Natalie Van Miter (Lauren Bacall), Abigail Delorean (Lily Tomlin), and Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas), to whom Carter is closest -- so close that he squires her, regularly, to sexual rendezvous with her lover, the lobbyist Robbie Kononsb...
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erg (Steven Hartley). When an unknown perpetrator stabs Robbie to death, and Lynn discovers his murdered body at his condo, Carter attempts to protect Lynn and her husband, Larry (Willem Dafoe), from media intrusion by informing the police that he found the body himself, despite the fact that it makes him an immediate suspect. In time, Carter discovers from the women (during their gossip over a canasta game) that Robbie was involved with a shady insurance company, on the verge of being investigated -- and that the investigation would have uncovered dirt and scandal on each woman. To shield Lynn from trouble, and deliver himself from incrimination, Page ultimately decides to investigate the crime himself, with the close assistance of his lover, the German-Turkish photographer Emek (Moritz Bleibtreu). Schrader authored the original script.
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