OLD JOY (USA) Kelly Reichardt’s adaptation of Jonathan Raymond’s short story about two longtime friends who embark on a weekend camping trip in the Oregon wilderness was the best narrative film I saw at Sundance this year — a haunting, melancholy contemplation of male friendship and the unrecoverable past. Called everything from a straight version of Brokeback Mountain to a granola Sideways, Old Joy is really a film about our inability to stop time, and about the search for sanctuary in an increasingly chaotic world. In the case of Mark (Daniel London), a pregnant wife regards his boys-only getaway with manifest disdain; Kurt (musician Will Oldham) is about to be evicted from his home and has little idea of where he’ll go next. As they venture into the woods, they reminisce about a former roommate who now lives in Big Sur; pass by a juice shop that used to be an independent record store; and, more often than not, merely soak up the beauty of the passing landscape, which Reichardt’s camera contemplates as some final, endangered frontier. Reichardt, who made a stunning feature debut 12 years ago with the Florida-set neo-noir River of Grass, allows the story to unfold according to its own sedate rhythms, drawing excellent performances from London and particularly Oldham, who delivers a haunting portrayal of one of society’s marginal people — a man who could well disappear into the ether without anyone realizing he was gone. (Italian Cultural Institute, Fri., June 23, 5 p.m.; Landmark Regent, Sun., June 25, 7... More >>>