Director: Noah
Baumbach | Starring:
Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, William Baldwin
Released: 2005
| Runtime: 81m
| Rating (out of 5):
***½ |
|
Writing family dysfunction
is a film favorite. When it comes down to it, whose family isn't dysfunctional?
We all have a wealth of material to draw from if we so desired. It
does seem, though, that Noah Baumbach has a deeper well than most.
Like Gene
Hackman's character, Royal, in The
Royal Tennenbaums, Jeff Daniels' father character is the central
hub of both the family and the story. And, like Hackman, he steals
the show. Daniels is at his very best in this role; playing both likable
and pathetic to a t. His performance is worth the price of the rental
alone. The only flaw I can point to is that he looks absolutely nothing
like the younger of his two sons, Frank, who is, in fact, the son
of Kevin
Kline and Phoebe
Cates. Perhaps it was done intentionally, or maybe the casting
agent thought that only idiots like me would point out that the kid
is clearly part Asian, and couldn't possibly be Daniels' progeny.
Of course none of this is the actor's fault, but it wouldn't be me
if I didn't say anything negative. Otherwise the film is filled with
lots of awkward scenes in which kids, uh, explore their bodies and
act out in weird ways. The young son decides to start drinking beer
and wiping his bodily fluids on lockers and books at school. The older
son decides to pretend that he wrote a Pink
Floyd song and pass it off as his own at a school talent contest.
The parents also act out; the mother hooking up with the younger son's
tennis coach, and the father hooking up with one of his young students
who his older son is interested in. As with other Baumbach films,
these scenes are presented in excruciatingly real ways, with all starkness
of what it must be like to be part of the sad, lonely world of the
characters in this family (a la The
Ice Storm). To say it's depressing is a bit of an overstatement,
but it is certainly cringe-worthy at times. Being a lower-budget film
set in the 1980s, the crew wasn't able to totally erase all remnants
of modern-day life. You can see new cars parked on the Brooklyn streets,
and several other things that belie the film's modern day makings.
Despite this, they do a good job of recalling that recent past. I
was honestly hoping for a little more comedy on this one, as they
really built some fun characters. They did take this one to some dark
places, but the few moments of levity were really very good--I just
wish there were more of them. I could imagine, in another reality,
them making a television series out of this. Of course it would be
cancelled after three episodes for being to heady for the general
public, and way, way too real. [DVD]
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