Dwight Evans, a vagrant, lives out of his car in Delaware and scavenges for food and money. After learning of the impending release of Wade Cleland, the man who murdered Dwight's parents twenty years earlier, Dwight returns to his hometown in Virginia. En route he steals a gun but breaks it trying to open its trigger lock.
Dwight watches the Clelands collect Wade from prison in a limousine and follows them. They go to a local club to celebrate Wade's release. Dwight follows Wade to the club's restroom and fatally stabs him in the head. Having dropped his car keys in the club, Dwight steals the Clelands' limousine. Discovering a teenage boy, William Cleland, in the back of the car, Dwight lets him go. William implies that Wade didn't kill Dwight's parents.
After cleaning himself up, Dwight visits his sister, Sam, for the first time in years and tells her that he has killed Wade. Sam is shocked but relieved by this revelation. As the killing has gone unreported on the news, Dwight surmises that the Clelands have decided to seek revenge without police involvement. Since Dwight's car is registered to Sam's address, she flees her home with her daughters and Dwight waits in the family house for the Clelands' attack. Wade's two brothers, Teddy and Carl, arrive in Dwight's car. As Dwight escapes, he runs over Teddy and places the unconscious body in the trunk. Before he can drive away, Carl shoots him with a crossbow.
After having the wound treated at a hospital, Dwight returns to Sam's house to clean up from the attack. He tracks down Ben Gaffney, an old high school friend, and asks for help. After obtaining a rifle, Dwight interrogates Teddy at gunpoint on Ben's property. Teddy reveals that Wade was not his parents' killer. Dwight's father and Wade Sr.'s wife were having an affair. As revenge, Wade's now-deceased father killed Dwight's father; Dwight's mother's death was incidental, as she happened to be in the car during the ambush. Wade Jr. took the blame so that his father, who had terminal cancer, did not have to die in prison. Teddy wrestles the gun from Dwight but is shot dead by Ben. Dwight and Ben put Teddy's body back into the trunk and part ways after Ben resupplies Dwight with food and more weapons. To keep Ben from further involvement, Dwight sabotages his truck.
Dwight goes to the Clelands' house and removes as many hidden firearms as he can. He buries Teddy and waits to ambush the Clelands. He leaves a message on the answering machine informing them of Teddy's death and asks them to leave Sam out of the dispute. Carl, his older sister, Kris, and their cousin, Hope, return and listen to Dwight's message. When it becomes clear that the Clelands intend to kill Sam, Dwight fatally shoots Carl. He holds the women at gunpoint while musing out loud about whether he should kill them all. William, entering through another door, shoots Dwight. Dwight disarms William and tells him to leave with his car. As William leaves, Dwight tells the women that William is his half-brother. Hope attacks Dwight as Kris reaches for a hidden gun. Kris accidentally kills Hope, and mortally wounds Dwight, before he shoots her dead. Dwight dies on the floor, mumbling that the keys are in the car.
Blair and Saulnier made movies together growing up and hoped to make a living out of it; however, as they both became older with families, they realized that that might not happen.[5] After the disappointing reception of their horror comedy Murder Party, the two wanted to make one last film together. Saulnier said, "We embraced the fact that we had to wrap up this childhood arc—this insane fantasy of wanting to be filmmakers—and just make a film that was right and true."[5] The concept of a revenge story appealed to Saulnier, who said that it "was just about grounding the film in a very mundane scenario that needed so little exposition."[6] The film's plot also serves as a critique for Saulnier of films that he enjoyed growing up. In particular, several violent crimes in the early years of the 2010s "made [him] miserable", and he said he "couldn't do a film that was akin to those awesome genre spectacles of my youth" in said climate.[5]
The film was financed with help from a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012 asking for $35,000[1] and money from Saulnier's own savings.[7] Saulnier initially did not want to use the crowd funding platform, as he felt conflicted about asking for help, specifically that donors could not invest in the back end through the site. However, he eventually realized that the positive outweighed the negative.[7] Saulnier said that when making the pitch video for the campaign "I faced my worst nightmare" as he was camera shy.[7]
Reception
Box office
Blue Ruin, which received a limited theatrical release, grossed $258,384 in the United States and Canada, and $734,929 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $993,313,[8] against a budget of $420,000.[9]
The film then was given a home video release on July 22, 2014.[10]
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 145 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Smart, stripped-down, and thrillingly grim, Blue Ruin proves that a well-told revenge story can still leave its audience on the edge of their seat."[11]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[12]
Top ten lists
Blue Ruin was listed on many critics' top ten lists for 2014.[13]
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