It is a rare thing to see an actor argue with himself on screen for nearly two hours. Even rarer is seeing that actor do it while playing identical twins—one a high-strung Ivy League philosophy professor and the other a backwoods marijuana grower with a gift for hydroponics. This is the central hook of the Leaves of Grass movie, a 2009 dark comedy-thriller that feels like it was beamed in from a different dimension. Written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson, the film isn't just a stoner comedy, and it definitely isn't a straightforward crime drama. It’s a bizarre, messy, and surprisingly deep meditation on the duality of the human condition.
Most people who stumble across it on a streaming platform expect something like Pineapple Express. They see Edward Norton's name twice on the poster and assume it’s a goofy romp. Instead, they get a film that quotes Walt Whitman and Socrates while simultaneously dealing with the brutal realities of the Oklahoma drug trade.
Honestly, it’s a jarring experience.
The Dual Performance of Edward Norton
Norton has always been a bit of a chameleon, but here he’s doing double duty as Bill and Brady Kincaid. Bill is the classic overachiever. He’s a professor of Classical Philosophy at Brown University who has spent his entire adult life trying to outrun his "hillbilly" roots. He speaks in refined, calculated sentences. Then there’s Brady. Brady stayed home in Oklahoma. He wears flannel, sports a messy beard, and spends his days engineering high-grade weed that looks like it belongs in a laboratory.
The Leaves of Grass movie works primarily because Norton doesn't treat either character like a caricature. It would have been so easy to make Brady a "dumb" stoner, but he’s actually the more emotionally intelligent of the two. He’s a genius in his own right, just a different kind than his brother. When Bill is lured back to Oklahoma under the false pretense that Brady has been murdered, the collision of their two worlds creates a friction that drives the rest of the plot.
It’s about the masks we wear. Bill wears the mask of the intellectual to hide his shame, while Brady wears the mask of the local dealer to hide his sensitivity.
A Cast That Actually Cares
You can tell the actors were having a blast with the script. Tim Blake Nelson, who directed the film, also stars as Bolger, Brady’s loyal and somewhat dim-witted best friend. If you recognize Nelson, it’s probably from his role as Delmar in O Brother, Where Art Thou? or the titular character in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He brings that same quirky, Southern Gothic energy to this film.
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Then you have Richard Dreyfuss. He plays Pug Rothbaum, a Jewish drug lord based in Tulsa. It’s an eccentric choice, but it works within the film's weird internal logic. And we can't forget Susan Sarandon as the twins' mother. She’s an aging hippie living in a nursing home who provides the emotional anchor for the brothers' reconciliation.
The performances are grounded, which is necessary because the plot goes absolutely off the rails in the second half.
Why Leaves of Grass Defies Simple Genres
Trying to categorize the Leaves of Grass movie is a nightmare for marketing departments. Is it a comedy? Sometimes. There are moments of genuine levity, mostly involving Brady’s elaborate weed-growing setups. Is it a thriller? Definitely. There’s a plot involving a debt to a dangerous middleman and a botched heist that gets very violent, very quickly.
But at its heart, it’s a philosophical treatise.
The title is a direct reference to Walt Whitman’s famous poetry collection. Whitman’s work celebrated the interconnectedness of all things—the high and the low, the urban and the rural, the body and the soul. The film tries to do the same thing. It asks if a man who studies the "higher things" like Plato is actually any better than a man who works the land, even if that land is producing illegal narcotics.
The Oklahoma Setting
The film was shot largely in Shreveport, Louisiana, though it’s set in southeastern Oklahoma. This region, often referred to as "Little Dixie," has a very specific culture that Nelson—who is himself from Tulsa—wanted to capture. It’s a place where religion, violence, and a fierce sense of independence all live in the same house.
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The cinematography uses a warm, amber palette that makes the Oklahoma summer feel thick and humid. You can almost smell the dirt and the diesel. This atmosphere contrasts sharply with the cold, sterile hallways of the Ivy League university we see at the start of the film.
The Controversy of the Ending
Without spoiling the specifics for those who haven't seen it, the final act of the Leaves of Grass movie is divisive. Some viewers find the shift in tone—from lighthearted sibling rivalry to sudden, jarring tragedy—to be too much. It’s a "tonal whiplash" that many critics pointed out during its limited theatrical release.
However, looking at it through the lens of Greek tragedy, which Bill Kincaid teaches, the ending makes total sense.
In classic tragedies, the hero’s "hubris" or "hamartia" leads to their downfall. Bill’s flaw is his denial of his own nature. He thinks he can just visit his past, fix it, and leave without getting his hands dirty. The movie argues that life doesn't work that way. You can't separate the "grass" from the soil it grows in.
The Legacy of the Film
Today, the movie sits with a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s the definition of a "love it or hate it" film. It didn't make much money at the box office, mostly because the studio didn't know how to sell a movie that features both a crossbow murder and a lecture on Socratic irony.
But it has found a second life on home video and streaming. It’s become a cult favorite for people who want something more substantial than a typical Hollywood comedy. It’s a film that demands your full attention because if you blink, you might miss a crucial line of dialogue that explains why a character is making a life-altering decision ten minutes later.
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Making Sense of the Philosophy
If you want to truly appreciate what the Leaves of Grass movie is trying to say, you have to look at the concept of the Parallel Lives.
Plutarch wrote a series of biographies comparing famous Greeks and Romans to find common moral virtues. Nelson’s script does a modern version of this with the Kincaid twins. It’s a "what if" scenario. What if one brother left and one stayed? What if one sought wisdom in books and the other sought it in the earth?
The conclusion the movie reaches isn't particularly optimistic, but it is honest. It suggests that while we can choose our path, we can't choose our origins.
How to Approach Watching Leaves of Grass
If you’re planning on sitting down to watch this, here are a few things to keep in mind so you don't end up confused or disappointed.
- Forget the Trailer: The original trailers marketed this as a "zany" comedy. It is not that. Go in expecting a character study with some dark turns.
- Listen to the Dialogue: Tim Blake Nelson is a playwright by trade. The dialogue is dense and often rhythmic. Don't browse on your phone while watching, or you’ll lose the thread of the philosophical arguments Brady and Bill have.
- Watch the Background: The detail in Brady’s "grow room" is incredible. The production design team actually consulted with experts to make sure the hydroponic setups looked authentic to the time.
- Pay Attention to the Accents: Edward Norton worked with a dialect coach to differentiate the brothers. Bill’s voice is clipped and Mid-Atlantic, while Brady’s is a soft, rhythmic Oklahoman drawl. The shift between them is subtle but vital.
The Leaves of Grass movie remains one of the most unique entries in Edward Norton's filmography. It’s a film that refuses to stay in its lane, much like the characters it depicts. Whether you find it brilliant or frustrating, it’s a movie that stays with you long after the credits roll.
To get the most out of your viewing, try reading a few of Walt Whitman's poems from the original Leaves of Grass collection first. Specifically, look at "Song of Myself." It provides the thematic blueprint for the entire story and makes the ending feel a lot more intentional than accidental. Check your local library or a digital archive for the 1855 edition for the rawest version of the text. After watching, compare how the film uses the idea of "containing multitudes" to justify its own chaotic structure. It turns a weird movie into a genuine intellectual puzzle.