Derek Cianfrance last graced screens nearly a decade ago with The Light Between Oceans. That period drama, starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, came and went, but, at the time, I was surprised how much the film moved me. No wonder: does anyone remember that this guy wrote and directed Blue Valentine in 2010? Even The Place Beyond the Pines two years later had some staying power in the cultural memory. The Light Between Oceans made $26 million against a $20 million budget, which means it lost money, and since then, Cianfrance has worked in television (HBO’s I Know This Much is True) and, presumably, worked to get a movie made in a world increasingly less interested in the kinds of traditional studio dramas he’s made.
Roofman, his latest, stars Channing Tatum as the titular man, a veteran in the early-2000s struggling to make ends meet. He breaks into fast-food restaurants at night through their roofs, waiting until the employees get in the next morning, locking them in the freezer, and making out with some dough. The film begins just as Tatum, playing Jeffrey Manchester, real life “roofman,” breaks into a McDonald’s. He gets away—and gives one of the employees his jacket for the freezer—and makes it home, but this time the cops bust him. Shortly after sentenced to 45 years in prison, roofman’s family cuts off all contact; he escapes in the undercarriage of a laundry truck and lands in Charlotte, North Carolina.
On the news and still on the loose, roofman hides out in the nooks and crannies of a Toys ‘R’ Us, lives there for a month, and eavesdrops on the total dick manager (Peter Dinklage). He falls for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) over security camera, and eventually finagles enough stolen video games, toys, and Peanut M&M’s to maintain a double life as Leigh’s new boyfriend, potential stepfather to her two daughters, and, as he puts it, an “undercover government worker,” in other words a fugitive hiding out behind a Sesame Street display. Stuck in an impossible situation, and eventually too attached to leave the country with a new identity, roofman “lets himself be caught,” coming over to Christmas Dinner with Leigh and her family, where he’s arrested and sent back to prison. As the credits roll, news footage from 2004 of the real roofman plays, along with present-day interviews with the real Leigh and characters played in the film by Ben Mendelsohn and Tony Revolori.
Jordan Ruimy of World of Reel called Roofman “the saddest romantic comedy in ages,” and while that’s not entirely inaccurate, it’s reductive and misleading to call Roofman a “romantic comedy.” This is the kind of drama “for adults” that people are always talking about missing, one “they don’t make like they used to,” the kind of movie that disappeared from theaters in the 2020s. Roofman isn’t a “crime film” either, at least strictly speaking; it’s very sad, but it’s not doom and gloom at all. Tatum and Dunst carry this movie and make you remember a period—say, 2004—when this kind of morally complicated but not uncommercial movie was abundant. Roofman is a commercial drama for a healthy world, a pop culture that doesn’t need its “content” pre-digested. Shot on glorious 35mm by Andrij Parekh, Roofman is free of the lack of contrast and bafflingly low lighting that plagues so many modern movies.
Dunst, whose career has never really recovered from Lars Von Trier’s Nazi provocations at Cannes 2011, is phenomenal as the run-down Leigh, under the thumb of a dickhead manager and stuck in a small-town with two girls and not enough money. Watching Roofman, you wish she wasn’t sitting next to Von Trier when he started going off, because even if his comments torpedoed her Oscar chances, it was her stunned reaction sitting right next to him that fixed itself in the public and the press’ minds. Since then, the only major films she’s appeared in are Civil War, Hidden Figures, The Power of the Dog, and two collaborations with Sofia Coppola, The Bling Ring and The Beguiled. Next year, she’ll star in The Entertainment System is Down, Ruben Östlund’s follow-up to 2022 Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness. One hopes that in May 2026, Dunst will make her comeback on the Croissette, sitting very far away from her director.
Tatum continues to fly under the radar as America’s greatest leading man, a real charmer with the air of a less-addled Sterling Hayden, or even a more grounded Burt Lancaster. No surprises there, and I didn’t expect Dunst to be anything less than great, but her performance here is remarkable, and although she won’t get it, she deserves an Oscar nomination. This isn’t a flashy part, but it’s thoroughly real in a way so few new movies are now. Roofman may make some money, but it’ll come and go, there aren’t any fireworks like Blue Valentine, and the audience isn’t used to this kind of movie anymore. I overheard a guy telling his girlfriend—or date—“It was good… kind of heartbreaking, though.” I didn’t hear the response. Did they remember what Nicole Kidman said, that crying feels good in a place like this? Maybe, maybe not—I didn’t go to an AMC.
Best case scenario: Roofman becomes a sleeper hit like Anyone But You last year. I hope Cianfrance stays in movies and returns sooner than 2036, when the real Jeffrey Manchester is up for parole. Hopefully, he’ll be able to go to a movie theater just to go, and to see what’s playing.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NickyOtisSmith