Eugene, Oregon, 1933. The Great Depression is four years old, a widowed veteran has lost his home and his daughter, and a warden offers him a way out: six days on foot through the forest with a pack full of gold. Padraic McKinley's The Weight is a film about desperate people carrying other people's fortunes, and everyone on the trail is there because there was nowhere else to turn.

In this episode, Joshua Johnson, John Dougherty, and Craig Detweiler review McKinley's directorial debut: Ethan Hawke's quiet, physical performance, Russell Crowe's warden, a rope bridge that earns its cliché, and an ending that may pull its punches. Then each host brings a double feature in conversation with it, and Craig opens the show's first Good, True, and Beautiful review with one of his all-time favorites.

How far would you carry someone else's burden to get back to the people you love?

Now Showing: The Weight
(00:58) The Weight: spoiler-free review
(20:03) Spoiler section

Double Feature
(35:58)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2000)
Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)

A Good, True, and Beautiful Review
(52:47)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

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Produced and Edited by Joshua Johnson

Music by Steve Slagg

The Good, The True, and The Cinema is a part of The Shifting Culture Podcast Network