Gran Torino

Walt Kowalski, an ex-auto worker, whose wife has recently died, lives in a rotting neighborhood in Detroit. He is the last white person in the neighborhood, now teeming with Hmong people. His sons express their concerns with his living in the old neighborhood. Walt’s neighbors are a Hmong family with a cute daughter, Sue, and a timid son, Tao. Tao’s gangbanger cousins try to get him to join their gang, but when he fails the initiation of stealing Walt’s Gran Torino, things get ugly. They try to force him into the gang, but Walt growls at the gangbangers to ‘get off his lawn’ as they look down the barrel of his Korean War carbine. Tao culturally has to make amends with Walt, so he takes the boy under his blue-collar wings and disciples him on how to ‘be a man’, consisting of racial slurs and cuss word grammar, as well as respect for property and elders. The gangbangers strike back, the situation quickly escalates out of Walt’s control and confrontation is necessary. Any more summary would give too much of the story away, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.

The film, like Walt, carries marks of religion, race, age, war, family and economics. Like the decadent neighborhood where he lives, Walt too has been cast aside by his society, most notably his sons. They both drive Japanese cars, which Walt takes as an insult on his character. Constant inquires by a Catholic Father of Walt begin to pull back the layers of scar tissue that sheathe the whole Cold War generation. Scars of war and family loss and trouble seep through these conversations. There is also a Hmong religious man who makes Walt feel ‘more at home than with his family.’ The portrayal of religion is not one of annoyance, but of a therapeutic way to understand self. At the end of the film, Walt’s kids come to a greater understanding of him through religion, and Walt understands true religion. As a study on race in America, the film is not reluctant or dark yet hopeful for the future of reconciliation. But we have to trudge through a lot of muddy, grotesque racism to get to that point.

The polished Gran Torino and the brusque Walt are the decaying Old America. The shiny antique car is a symbol of the respected generation of America who fought in the ‘Cold’ War. Walt is an archetypal growling old man who learned to survive in battle and now alone. The car signals a transition in the relationship between the Tao and Walt, and it also hints at a passing down of one generation’s traditions to the next. As a microcosm of the elderly American generation, Walt’s frustrations culminate with an argument with his son and her wife. The son wants to relocate Walt to an ‘independent retirement community.’ With a close up shot of Walt’s face in a crescendo of growling (perhaps a deeper growl from American elderly) he kicks his son out of his house.

Gran Torino is a microcosmic reading of an abrasive old man named Walt, who just needs something fresh and foreign to show him the truth.