‘The Card Counter’ Asks Whether an Abu Ghraib Torturer Is Worthy of a Second Chance

While discussing his new film The Card Counter in an interview with Deadline, filmmaker Paul Schrader presented a paradox, both railing against the supposed insidiousness of “cancel culture” while decrying people’s strong aversion to personal responsibility. “What I was trying to capture from this moment,” he explained, “is this lack of responsibility people seem to have. ‘I didn’t lie, I misspoke,’ ‘I didn’t touch her inappropriately, I made a mistake.’ Nobody is really responsible for anything.”

What Schrader fails to realize is that “cancel culture” is most often invoked by those wishing to evade responsibility (“it’s the culture that’s toxic, not me!”), and while context is indeed important, it doesn’t grant you an indulgence. I am reminded of Bob Baffert, the legendary horse trainer, who blamed “cancel culture” when his Kentucky Derby-winning horse was found to have tested positive for steroids.

This is all, of course, germane to Schrader’s latest, which centers on a mysterious card counter by the name of William Tell (Oscar Isaac, more brooding than ever) who, after a ten-year stint behind bars, drifts from casino to casino across the U.S. winning small sums of money at blackjack and Texas hold ‘em. An early sequence sees William pocket $750 counting cards at blackjack before booking a cheap motel room, removing the artwork and devices, and covering all of the furniture in white sheets—for he is a ghost who lives an ascetic life of cards, sleep, and the occasional glass of whiskey.

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