Review of Vermont Hit: Man With a Plan

Normally, I'm not a big fan of art involving cows. In fact, I might have once argued that such an art form didn't exist. A recent viewing of John O'Brien's Man with a Plan, however, changed my mind.

Man with a Plan is the chronicle of 72-year-old farmer Fred Tuttle's race for Congress in his native Vermont. Why? He needs a job with health benefits that doesn't require experience. Besides, as Fred's campaign slogan asks, "Why not?"

That's pretty much the entire plot—Fred's evil competitor, William Blachly, throws him a curve or two—and the action drags a little at times. Even so, it's a minor flaw. O'Brien's film is so visually beautiful that the pauses give you a chance to admire the scenery surrounding the native Vermonters. He blocks his scenes like a painter, using color to draw the viewer's eye, and as a result the relative lack of action is irrelevant.

It’s difficult to discuss the performances, since there aren't any. O'Brien used his neighbors, friends, and farm animals to play the neighbors, friends, and farm animals in the film. He was recently quoted as saying that this is the first film in which the animals play themselves. Both the neighbors and the animals are characters you'll enjoy spending time with, whether they're chatting about elocution ("You sound like you're saying 'Furry Turtle'," a transplanted Brit explains to Fred, about his pronunciation of his name), or discussing Fred's campaign platform, FRED: Friendly, Renewable, Extraterrestrial, and Dinky.

There is a bit of subtext to Fred's platform. While his idea of solving the garbage problem by rocketing the trash into space is a little, well, out of this world, it's hard to dismiss his argument that things were better in Vermont when the farms were "dinkier." While the movie thankfully lacks a hand-wringing, oh-god-things-are-changing political message, it is a love letter to a way of life that, like Fred, is unique, wonderful, and may soon be gone.

So, yes, about those cows. Man with a Plan is filled with loving shots of sheep, cows, cats, and a big white dog. Somehow, the camera transforms them, so that by the end of the movie you want nothing so much as to snuggle up between Fred and a couple of Jerseys. Which happen to be his favorite cows.