Major Arcana: Minimalist Gem Tells Very Human Story with Care and Honesty

By Thom Ernst

Rating: A-

I was unfamiliar with the term Major Arcana, the title of writer/director Josh Melrod’s understated story of a man quietly moving beyond a legacy of addiction.

It refers to a specific set of cards found in a Tarot deck, which accounts for why, when researching the title, several films and television programs pop up, all dealing somewhat with the occult or paranormal.

But there is nothing otherworldly about Melrod’s film. Other than presumed demons goading the main character towards old bad habits, Major Arcana could not be more grounded in the real world.

For reasons known only to Melrod, the central character’s name is Dink, played by first-time (film) actor Ujon Tokarski. Dink is a significantly unusual name to suspect deliberate intent on Melrod’s part to go beyond merely slapping a quaint moniker on his character.

But if Melrod intends for the name to have any bearing on how we see his character, or as evidence eluding to a neglected childhood, then—with apologies to the 0.001% population of the world who have named their children Dink—it is a minor infraction. The real evidence is in the ramshackle ruins of his family home.

Dink has returned to the backwoods rural home of his childhood after disappearing for over four years. He first appears onscreen disheveled, unbathed, and in dire need of a comb. He walks through debris that was his father’s home like he was surveying the scene of a crime, and indeed, for Dink, he is returning to the source of his ruin. It is a dangerous place for him to be if he truly hopes to end a cycle of poverty and neglect.

Dink returns a changed man, but in ways that only he can recognize. And those who do remember him—an ex-girlfriend and his mother—are none too happy to have him back.

He tells people he’s here to settle his father’s estate.

“How long will that take?” his ex-girlfriend quips, “Ten minutes?”

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She’s right to be cynical. Despite all contrary evidence, the father came late into money (lottery winnings) and has left Dink a large sum, plus over 50 acres of land. It’s money and property his estranged mother, Jean — played by veteran actor Lane Bradbury — believes is rightfully hers.

Jean is a bitter, broken, and angry woman too far lost for any hope of return. She is, and probably always was, a lousy mother. But even at her worst, even while she plots and rages, there is in her gaze, a hint of a woman longing to be a better person; someone kinder, someone who knows how to earn her child’s love.

Melrod takes a somewhat tilted view of a man in recovery, avoiding the earmarked tropes of someone on the brink of a relapse. Dink keeps his recovery private, even from the audience. He does not attend AA meetings; he can enter a bar without fear of back-sliding; he can even seek an old drinking friend without touching a bottle.

The trick is to keep busy.

And so, Dink builds a log cabin by hand, by himself. Watching the cabin rise from falling the trees to setting in a stain-glass window is an excellent hook into the film. Of course, it’s also the perfect metaphor for rebuilding life from the ground up, mainly when the foundation of that life is on home soil.

Major Arcana is a minimalist film with only a handful of characters. The story takes its time, revealing details of not only Dink’s life but of Sierra (Tara Summers), a young woman whose emotions for Dink fluctuates between disgust and affection. Sierra is the most troubled character in the film, but she can also be the final piece in Dink’s salvation—but only if he’s willing (and able) to be the final piece in hers.

Melrod leaves his characters, and the audience, on a note clouded in assumptions and possibilities. Major Arcana is a haunting parable told with great care and honesty. But it’s also a story that can be told from a deck of Tarot cards, where every card is revealed by chance, and its interpretation is left to the reader.

Major Arcana. Directed by Josh Melrod. Starring Ujon Tokarski, Tara Summers and Lane Bradbury. Available on V.O.D. beginning November 6.