Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds (A24)

Mississippi Grind is a buddy movie about scrappy gamblers starring Ryan Reynolds. That may not sound promising; Reynolds has a bland hunkiness that I’ve always found pretty forgettable, and the prospect of a good gambling buddy movie seems as unlikely as the reincarnation of Robert Altman. But surprise, surprise, it’s as wonderful and real as anything I’ve seen at the movies this year.

We meet Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) in his beater of a car listening to an instructional CD, Joe Navarro’s 200 Poker Tells. These tips point out body language to look for to determine if your opponents at the poker table have a good or bad hand. Slumped, shaggy, and defeated, Gerry clearly has a bad hand, and as Navarro reads off the characteristics of losers like Gerry, he looks chided and ashamed.

Gerry sells real estate in Dubuque, Iowa, which is as desperate a job as it sounds. He has a gambling problem so bad his wife took their daughter and left them. He hits a small time poker game where Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) shows up, a new guy who seems to subtly change the room’s energy. After Curtis buys Gerry a friendly drink, Gerry’s luck seems to turn and the new friends agree to hit a high stakes game in New Orleans.

I love the way this movie lets you discover its relationships. When Gerry meets Sam (Alfre Woodard) in a diner, you think they’re just old friends or even old flames, but instead of telling you what they are to each other, the filmmakers just show you. As the scene unfolds, you learn that she’s Gerry’s loan shark, and he owes her a lot. Likewise, the unlikely friendship between young, confident Curtis and down on his luck Gerry isn’t explained so much as observed. Beautifully observed: I can’t remember another recent movie where I felt like I was watching real people have natural conversations.

Gerry and Curtis go through lucky patches and bad streaks, but the worst luck seems to be that they’re simply lonely and lost. Mendelsohn and Reynolds have great buddy chemistry. Like good poker players, they take care not to wear their cards on their sleeves—but as those poker tells reveal, they show their confidence or lack thereof in more subtle ways. Reynolds is fine as the younger but more seasoned gambler, but Mendelsohn owns the movie, his expressive face quietly evoking a rich and sensitive inner life—and, when it’s his turn to show a girl his magic trick, a surprisingly moving one.

I haven’t seen California Split, the Altman-directed 1974 gambling buddy movie that many see as the superior antecedent to this film (this is where you make a face that I’ve seen the Traveling Pants movies but not a known classic). But writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Sugar) pull off a tone that reminds me less of Altman than of his protégé Alan Rudolph, and much of that is due to a soundtrack full of old fashioned country and blues. Cinematographer Andrij Parekh (he shot Blue Valentine) evokes Rudolph’s Choose Me in the film’s neon-bathed nights, and has a great eye for the small-town businesses the buddies pass on their travels. Well-written, acted, photographed and scored, Mississippi Grind is no gamble.

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Mississippi Grind
Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
With Ben Mendelsohn, Ryan Reynolds
Rated R for language
Running time 108 minutes.
Opens today at the AFI Silver and Angelika Pop-up.