The Parts You Lose movie review (2019)
Many movies use striking images or close-ups of actors to help us see powerful performances. "The Parts You Lose" has all of that, but always in service of the story, much of it subtly filmed from Wesley's height and perspective. It also makes the most of the setting, a remote, hardscrabble small town in frigid, mid-winter North Dakota (filmed in Canada). There is snow everywhere, and Wesley's red knit cap stands out in the muted palette of neutral-toned overcoats and bare-limbed trees.
The first time Wesley sees the wanted man (Aaron Paul), he is lying motionless in the snow, an ominous dark blob in vast whiteness that would be powerful as an abstract image on the wall of a museum. Before we can wonder if he is still alive, he moves, and it happens to be exactly the form of communication best suited for Wesley to comprehend. He puts a finger to his lips to convey silence, a form of communication Wesley is very good at.
As with Pip in "Great Expectations" and the children in "Whistle Down the Wind" and "Mud," the relationship between those who are vulnerable due to their youth and lack of experience and adults with a history of volatility and violence brings out our most protective instincts, and sometimes those of the criminals as well. Wesley helps the man who is hiding out, and the man helps Wesley as well, giving him advice about how to handle the bully who has been preying on him at school, and respecting him enough to beat him in checkers until he learns to do better.
It is significant that Wesley's father calls his son "Tiger," a name that says more about what he wants his son to be than about who he is. While Wesley's mother (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) uses sign language to talk to Wesley, his father Ronnie (Scoot McNary) refuses. In one telling scene, Ronnie glances at a colleague at the auto shop teaching his son about Wesley's age about the different kinds of wrenches. For Ronnie, Wesley's disability seems to him to be just one more unfairness in his own life.
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