Film

Didn’t Errol Morris already make the definitive screen statement on topiary gardening? Or is the gardening here only a red herring? In an anecdote A Man Named Pearl inexplicably treats as a throwaway, we learn that subject Pearl Fryar learned to clip trees after being shunned from a South Carolina neighborhood—his would-be neighbors thought a black man wouldn’t maintain his yard. His spectacular revenge was to teach himself free-form topiary gardening—his only training was a three-minute demo—a gambit that’s earned him local imitators and a measure of fame in the art world.

Unfortunately, A Man Named Pearl sticks to hagiography. There’s a hint of exploitation on the part of Bishopville residents, some of whom seem to see Pearl less for his artistic achievement than his potential as a gold mine. (“Best thing about tourists is you don’t have to educate ’em and you don’t have to medicate ’em, and they leave their dollars here,” chirps a rep from the Bishopville chamber of commerce.) A more critical social perspective might have given A Man Named Pearl some edge, but instead the movie pads itself to 78 minutes with endless platitudes about self-invention, hard work and so-called small-town values. However noble the sentiments, they don’t make for an interesting movie.