The Last of Us is a game about life after the apocalypse and a dangerous mission to navigate a zombie-infested United States. But, on the story's most basic level, it's a road movie about a morally dubious man taking a young girl from Point A to Point B and the bond they form on the trip. In that way, it's an awful lot like the wonderful 1973 film, Paper Moon.
I watched Paper Moon for the first time over the weekend and really enjoyed it. The dramedy has been on my list for a while now as I’ve been working my way through the significant films of the New Hollywood era. That’s the time roughly from 1967 to 1980 when a new generation of American filmmakers, influenced by the techniques of the French New Wave, rose to dominate the Hollywood studio system. That meant more naturalistic acting, grayer morality and grittier stories, location shooting, and an emphasis on the director as the primary creative force and author of a film. It’s the period in American film during which many of Hollywood's most iconic directors rose to prominence, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, and Paper Moon's bespectacled critic-turned-auteur, Peter Bogdanovich.
Bogdanovich is best known for the trio of films he did from 1971 to 1973: The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon. All three were critically acclaimed and box office successes. Later in life, he was well known for his recurring role as Dr. Melfi's therapist Elliot Kupferberg on The Sopranos. His movies, more than those of any of his New Hollywood contemporaries, were interested in bridging the gap between the old and the new. Paper Moon was shot in black and white and was set during the Depression era. None of that may sound especially appealing to fans of The Last of Us, but the central dynamic between Ryan O'Neal's con man Moses Pray and orphan Addie Loggins, played by O'Neal's real-life daughter, Tatum, shares a lot of DNA with the relationship between Joel and Ellie.
In the film's first scene, Mose stops by Addie's mom's funeral in rural Kansas to pay his respects — it's implied that she was an old flame and, throughout the movie, it's an open question whether Mose might actually be Addie's father — and is asked to deliver Addie to her aunt's house in St. Joseph, MO. He accepts out of social pressure, but quickly tries to pawn her off at the train station and make some money for his trouble by playing on the guilt of the brother of the man who accidentally killed Addie's mother. Addie hears Mose's plan and yells at him, demanding her share of the money. To avoid a scene, he ends up doing the right thing and setting out to take her home.
That mission to escort a young girl from one area of the United States to another links Paper Moon to The Last of Us, but they are linked even more by the way that Addie quickly picks up the tools of Mose's trade. He's a con man and his current scheme involves scanning the obits for widows with recently departed husbands, stamping their name in a Bible, knocking on their door, and telling them that their husband ordered a custom Good Book just for them before they died. They're under no obligation to pay, of course, as Mose is quick to reassure them, but they do. Addie turns out to be a natural, quickly recognizing that they can upcharge a woman who is wearing a bunch of jewelry and offering their product for free to a woman who is clearly poor.
As the movie progresses, Addie becomes even better at pulling scams and O'Neal is just as undeniable in her skill as an actor. At just 10-years-old, she was (and remains) the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award when she took home the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her performance. Watching Addie increase in skill is enriched by the satisfaction of watching Mose develop a paternal love for her, despite the mercenary beginnings of their relationship.
If you, like me, love The Last of Us primarily for the relationship between its two lead characters, Paper Moon strikes a very similar dynamic. If you love The Last of Us primarily for its unique take on zombies or satisfying stealth gameplay, I won't try to sell you this engraved Bible. But it's a mighty fine product just the same.