Get Low

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Aaron Schneider directs. David Boyd behind the camera. Jan A. P. Kaczmarek scores. Aaron Schneider cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America, Germany, Poland. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Shot for just $0.7M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
• 2Grossed $11M — a 15.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
• 3Released 16 years ago.
• 4International production across 3 countries: United States of America, Germany, Poland.
• 5Directed by Aaron Schneider, shot by David Boyd. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 6Original score by Jan A. P. Kaczmarek. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 7Editor Aaron Schneider shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 8Robert Duvall and Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek carry the top of the cast.
• 9Marketing tagline: "A true tall tale.".
• 10IMDB entry: tt1194263 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography

David Boyd

Original score

Jan A. P. Kaczmarek

Editing

Aaron Schneider

Production design

Geoffrey Kirkland

Costume design

Julie Weiss

VFX supervisor

Gregory D. Liegey

Runtime

103 min · 1h 43m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Budget

$700,000

Box office

$10,522,511

Return

1503% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

PG-13

IMDB

Get Low (2010) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

84% 🍅 Fresh

Metacritic

77/100

IMDB rating

7/10 · 24,385 votes

MPAA

PG-13

Also by

Aaron Schneider

• 
  Greyhound

  2020 · ★ 7.4
• 
  Two Soldiers

  2003 · ★ 6.2

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  Theatrical Trailer

  Trailer · Official

Community reviews

What people are saying

• badelf2026-02-28
  ★ 8/10

  [maybe some spoilers] Felix Bush, the hermit at the center of Get Low, has lived alone in the Tennessee woods for forty years, avoiding and avoided by townspeople, the subject of rumors and whispered stories. When he emerges to plan his own funeral party while he's still alive so he can hear what people say about him, it seems like the eccentric act of a crazy character. But this is a psychological mystery and drama about something deeper, something most people recognize even if they've never heard the term: the painbody. The painbody is Eckhart Tolle's concept for accumulated emotional pain, the unresolved trauma and guilt that lives in us, often dormant but never gone, waiting to be triggered. When we refuse to face it, when we carry shame or grief or regret for years without release, it calcifies into something that controls us without approval, shapes our lives, isolates us from true connection. Felix Bush holds onto his painbody. He has carried a secret for forty years, a guilt so profound that he exiled himself from human community, living alone with his painbody because he believed he deserved nothing else. Without understanding this deeper level, the film is just an oddity. With it, Get Low becomes a story about what it takes to release what has been destroying us from within. Even if audiences never heard Eckhart Tolle's explanation, the story resonates with the subconscious because we all know what it means to carry something we can't put down, to live with a version of ourselves we can't forgive. Robert Duvall brings a high-level performance that is nuanced and balanced, never playing Felix as simply crazy or pitiable. You see the man beneath the painbody, the person he might have been if one terrible night hadn't defined the rest of his life. This is a perfect performance for a last curtain, though thankfully it wasn't Duvall's last. He shows us Felix's isolation not as misanthropy but as penance, his gruff exterior as armor against a world he no longer believes he deserves to inhabit. The living funeral is an act of closure and release. Felix needs witnesses. He needs to tell the truth publicly, to confess what he's carried alone, to be seen in his shame and guilt and to discover whether the community will condemn him or offer him something he hasn't given himself: forgiveness. You can't release a painbody in isolation; it requires being witnessed, speaking the unspeakable, allowing others to share the weight that you've been holding alone. The funeral party becomes a ritual, a final unburdening before death, the chance to die having told the truth. Bill Murray is cast perfectly as the funeral director who makes this strange request possible, bringing his particular blend of weariness and dry humor to a man who sees an opportunity but comes to understand he's participating in something sacred. Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black are naturally superb in their roles, grounding the story in genuine human connection. Get Low works because it understands that we are all, in some way, carrying pain we haven't released, stories we haven't told, versions of ourselves we've exiled into the woods of our psyche. Felix Bush's living funeral is what most of us never get: the chance to speak our truth, to be witnessed in our brokenness, and to discover that confession and release are possible even after forty years of self-imposed exile. That's why the film resonates. That's why it's more than an oddity. It's a story about how we survive what we've done, and how we finally, if we're brave enough and fearless enough, find our way back to our true selves.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  K5 International

  DE

• ZA

  Zanuck Independent

  US

• DA

  David Gundlach Productions

• 

  TVN

  PL

Key crew

• CastingLisa Mae Fincannon
• CastingCraig Fincannon
• Costume DesignJulie Weiss
• EditorAaron Schneider
• Production DesignGeoffrey Kirkland
• Art DirectionKorey Washington
• Set DecorationFrank Galline
• Executive ProducerDariusz Gąsiorowski
• Assistant EditorSterling Robertson
• Visual Effects SupervisorGregory D. Liegey
• ProducerDavid Gundlach
• ProducerDean Zanuck

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• hermit
• tennessee
• funeral director
• 1930s

Release history · US

When it landed

• Premiere2010-03-17· South by Southwest Film Festival
• Premiere2010-04-27· Tribeca Film Festival
• Premiere2010-01-22· Sundance Film Festival
• Theatrical (limited)2010-07-30PG-13
• Theatrical2010-08-27

Also known as

International titles

• El ultimo gran diaES
• The Funeral PartyNO
• Am Ende des Weges – Eine wahre LügengeschichteDE