“A Most Violent Year,” which Chandor directed and wrote, is set in the outer boroughs of New York in 1981, a year that’s statistically is considered to be the most violent one in the city’s long history.
Chandor must have watched many films by Sidney Lumet’s the late, quintessentially New York director, best known for his 1970s and 1980s urban policiers and moralistic dramas, such as Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, both starring Al Pacino, Network with a towering performance from Peter Finch, and Prince of the City, which came out in 1981, the same era in which Chandor’s new crime drama takes place.
Oscar Isaac’s lead character, Abel Morales, is neither mobbed up nor a legitimate businessman. Like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” movies, his intentions are honorable but his actions are suspect.
But he also displays a willful ignorance about his own corruptibility, allowing his wife, played with great charm and subtlety by Jessica Chastain, to get her hands dirty with the bookkeeping while he navigates a moral gray zone.
“One of Abel’s arsenals is the ability to selectively filter parts of his life through delusion,” says Chandor of his lead character.
Having directed “Margin Call” and “All Is Lost,” Chandor emerges as an intelligent filmmaker with a penchant for timely and politically relevant features.
Ultimately, the film is less about gangsters and do-gooders than about honor, loyalty, discipline and who has bigger cajones: the husband or the wife.
Chandor used the roughly parallel career trajectories of Isaac and Chastain, both Julliard alums, as a way of fueling their onscreen chemistry. In one telling scene, Chastain’s Anna kisses Abel, and as she’s walking away, he wipes his mouth while checking out her rear.
“You don’t get to where they are from both a professional and training level without tremendous drive,” says Chandor. “I found that the couple, in my mind when I was writing them, are competitive with each other in a way.”
