Category Archives: Dramedy

Staring at a blank page: Paper Man **1/2

July 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 8, 2010)

Did you ever encounter a married couple who left you pondering: “How in the hell did those two ever get together? Did somebody lose a bet?” I would lay odds that this thought has crossed the minds of husband and wife Kieran and Michele Mulroney, because in their first effort as co-writer/directors, Paper Man, they have created a fictional married couple who leave you pondering: “How in the hell did those two ever get together?”

“Those two” are Claire (Lisa Kudrow) and Richard (Jeff Daniels) Dunn. She is a successful and renowned vascular surgeon who works at a New York City hospital. He is a not-so-successful writer, whose last book went in the dumper. Needless to say, Claire is the breadwinner of the family; she’s the “responsible” one, and a bit of a control freak. Richard is a man-child; taciturn and socially awkward, with a tendency to daydream (typical writer). There is a third member of the family-but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

Richard is struggling with a new book, and Claire has decided that setting him up in a rented cottage in the Long Island boonies will help him focus on his work. As we watch the couple getting settled in, it becomes apparent that Claire is more of a caregiver/guardian than a wife; she is not unlike a doctor clinically observing her patient.

Her exasperation over her husband’s chronic underachievement is palpable beneath her forced cheerfulness as she prattles on about her busy work schedule for the upcoming week, and then casually asks Richard what he has planned for his first week alone at the cottage. “I’ll start from the very beginning,” he says nebulously, adding “…which is a very good place to start.” Before she leaves for work the next morning, she asks him, with an air of foreboding, “You didn’t bring ‘him’ with you, did you?”

‘He’ is Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). He is a figment of Richard’s imagination, his imaginary pal, ‘super-hero’, muse, conscience-that “little voice” in our heads (what…you don’t hear the voices?). Although he has assured his wife that ‘he’ didn’t come along, he “appears”, the second Claire pulls out of the driveway. “I sense danger,” he warns Richard.

This “danger” comes in many forms. Richard tends fixate on things (the couch in the cottage, for instance, really, really bothers him). Thinking too hard about his “half-dead marriage”, as the Captain refers to it. And of course, every writer’s nightmare: staring at an empty page for days on end, with no inspiration in sight.

The Captain’s early warning system goes into overdrive when Richard ventures into town on a Spyder bike and espies a young woman named Abby (Emma Stone) nonchalantly setting fire to a trash can. For some reason, this intrigues him. He follows her, and when she confronts him, Richard blurts out that he is new in town and needs a babysitter. For some reason, this intrigues her, and she says yes.

Imagine her surprise when she shows up and Richard tells her that there is no baby. He just wants her to hang out at his house while he goes out for a spell. In spite of the red flags, she says OK. In accordance with the rules and regulations of indie film, this marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So-is this yet another quirky, navel-gazing dramedy, a la Lost in Translation or Me and You and Everyone We Know, offering up a wistful and pithy examination of lonely, desperately unhappy people yearning to connect amidst the vast desolation of a cold and unfeeling universe, set to a requisite soundtrack of lo-fi pop and angsty emo tunes? And was I a tad gob smacked that Ellen Page or Zooey Deschanel were nowhere in sight? Yes, and yes, pretty much.

That being said, I still didn’t mind spending two hours with these characters, thanks to the sensitive direction and excellent performances, particularly by Daniels and Stone. Lisa Kudrow is always fun to watch, and I was surprised by Kieran Culkin’s touching turn in a small supporting role.

The Mulroneys seemed unsure how to best end the film, but I’m willing to grade them on a curve since this is their first collaborative writing-directing effort (Kieran Mulroney is the younger brother of actor Dermot, if you care). Perhaps they are staring at a blank page, cooking up their next project. I hope Captain Excellent is looking over their shoulder.

Behind the Music, Culture Clash, Dramedy, Family Issues

Mopey white guy with guitar, pt. 2: Wonderful World ***

July 7, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 16, 2010)

Wait a minute…didn’t I review this film last week?

Well, sort of…

Can blue men sing the whites?

Or are they hypocrites for singing woo, woo, whoo?

Oh Lord, somebody help me!

-The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

There was a famous children’s radio show that ran on WOR in New York from the late 1920s through the late 1940s that became infamous when it was rumored that the host, Uncle Don Carney, had once signed off with his signature cheery goodbye to the kiddies, then (not realizing that his microphone was still “hot”) immediately wisecracked, “There! That oughta hold the little bastards!”

I remember listening to it back in the 70s on an LP of legendary broadcasting bloopers compiled by Kermit Schaefer. I was disappointed to learn in later years that the gaffe was actually faked for the album (although most of the other cuts were genuine). Still, the enduring popularity of the urban legend says something about the appeal of the subversive cynic hiding behind the clown face.

This concept has spawned a sub-genre of films that can be traced back to the 1957 Elia Kazan entry, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith stars as a backwoods conman-turned media superstar whose vitriolic disdain for his public belies his image as a benignly goofy, “family-friendly” entertainer. Tony Richardson’s 1960 film adaptation of John Osborne’s cynical and scathing portrait of a fading vaudevillian (Laurence Olivier), The Entertainer also deserves a mention. More recent films like Bad Santa, Shakes the Clown and Death to Smoochy have toyed with the same theme. Wonderful World, the directorial debut from Joshua Goldin, fits right in.

“The only crime left in the fucking world is negative thinking,” laments Ben Singer (Matthew Broderick) who holds the view that everything is fixed, yuppies are the root of all evil, and we’re all doomed anyway…so why bother. A failed children’s singer (his sole album long relegated to the dusty cutout bins of history), the divorced Ben now works a dead-end job as a proofreader. When one of his co-workers chastises him for not sharing in the congratulatory excitement surrounding the news that another co-worker (an aspiring actor) has just landed his first television acting gig, he dismisses the scold with a shrug and says “I don’t delude myself with hopes and dreams.” He’s a real piece of work.

Interestingly, however, he does have friends. He participates in a weekly after-hours jam session in the back room of a music store with some pals, and proves to be a decent guitarist; it makes us wonder why he’s squandering his talents. As the music store owner observes, “That’s a shame, to be good at something no one cares about…” (as a blogger, don’t I know that feeling). His roommate Ibu (Michael K. Williams) a Senegalese immigrant, doesn’t let Ben’s chronic glumness dampen his own perpetually sunny disposition, and considers him a friend, despite all of his negative waves.

Ben does approach a state approximating enjoyment when he spends time with his precocious 11-year old daughter (Jodelle Ferland); although his rampant cynicism is markedly straining their relationship and becoming a source of concern to Ben’s ex-wife (Ally Walker). Ben seems quite happy to continue wallowing in his half-empty glass bubble of apathetic detachment, until a series of unexpected and personally challenging events shakes up his world, not the least of which in the person of Ibu’s sister (Sanaa Lathan) a Senegalese national who shows up on his doorstep one fateful day.

While this is familiar narrative (the self-pitying mope gets snapped out of his myopic torpor by the Free-Spirited Other), writer-director Goldin gives it a fresh spin. I expected things to go in another direction (another black comedy about a bitter children’s entertainer); but was pleasantly surprised by the warmth and humanity at its heart. Broderick gives a nuanced performance that I would put up there with his work in Election. Lathan does a lovely job, as does Williams (you may recognize him from HBO’s The Wire). Wonderful World may not be a major film, but it is a rewarding one.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Male Bonding

60 is the new 40: Solitary Man ***

July 6, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 22, 2010)

Michael Douglas dispenses some not-so-sage advice to Jesse Eisenberg.

Did you know that the average human life expectancy in the Neolithic era was 20? Which means that you would have your midlife crisis around what…age 10? Of course, 12,000 years later, thanks to advances in medicine, science and technology, that number skews a bit higher now. This probably accounts for 65-year old Michael Douglas getting away with portraying a 60 year-old who is suffering a midlife crisis, in the film Solitary Man.

Douglas is Ben, a divorced 60-year old New Yorker at a personal and professional crossroads. His physician has given him sobering health news. However, having a bad ticker (and a ticking clock) is the least of his problems. A classic narcissist, Ben’s main concern is not that he might be “going” any time now, but that he may not get to go out with the most toys.

You see, Ben’s a “used to be”. He used to be a successful car dealer, but lost the franchise due to unethical business practices. He used to have a lot of money, but the resulting legal expenses decimated most of his net worth. He used to be married to lovely and supportive Nancy (Susan Sarandon) but blew it with serial philandering. He’s not a likeable guy. He is a “closer”- on the car lot, or on the pull.

His girlfriend, Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker), is a well-connected Upper East Side divorcee with a college-bound daughter named Allyson (Imogen Poots). Ben accompanies Allyson to his alma mater; Jordan has asked Ben to use his pull with the dean to assure admittance. The dean used to be happy to see him, when he was a benefactor (the campus library carries Ben’s name), but his public fall from grace in the business community has made him a pariah.

To paraphrase Steely Dan-the weekend at the college doesn’t turn out like they planned. Ben’s penchant for getting himself into hot water gets the better of him. We spend the rest of the film watching self-sabotaging Ben crawl slowly from the wreckage of his life.

Director-screenwriter Brian Koppelman and co-director David Levien navigate the tricky waters of “dramedy” on a fairly even keel. It’s a fine performance by Douglas (no one plays a self-serving prick as convincingly as Douglas …remember Gordon Gekko?). Danny Devito is reunited with Douglas in an engaging supporting role, and Jesse Eisenberg once again plays, erm, Jesse Eisenberg…or maybe he’s playing Michael Cera (or perhaps those two young men represent a new paradigm in post-modern acting too subtle for me?).

I would have liked to have seen more scenes with Sarandon and Louise-Parker, those two wonderful actresses feel under-utilized; but this project was obviously developed as a showcase for Douglas, so it is what it is, and I accepted it as such. I find myself becoming more accepting as I get older. Besides, according to this film, I still have about six more carefree years before my midlife crisis.

Culture Clash, Dramedy, Food

First world problems: Eat Pray Love **

July 3, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 27, 2010)

Do you remember this popular Top 40 song from the late 70s ?

Oh, I’ve been to Nice and the Isle of Greece,
while I’ve sipped champagne on a yacht
I’ve moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo,
and showed ’em what I’ve got
I’ve been undressed by kings and I’ve seen some things,
that a woman ain’t supposed to see
I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me

God, I hated that song.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge the singer’s admirable journey of self-actualization, slogging and suffering along the way through the champagne and tiresome Mediterranean cruises and all, but any schlub who has been to at least two world’s fairs and a rodeo could have saved her the trip by quoting Buckaroo Banzai’s favorite adage:

Remember…wherever you go, there you are.

On the plus side, it only took 4 minutes for the singer to arrive at her epiphany. Unfortunately, it takes the globe-trotting heroine of Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love 133 minutes to reach that same conclusion (OK, so it took Tyrone Power 145 minutes in The Razor’s Edge…but who’s counting?)

Julia Roberts stars as Gilbert’s avatar in the film, where she is briefly introduced to us as a seemingly happy, thirty-something NYC-based writer with a loving and supporting husband (Billy Crudup). I say “briefly introduced”, because soon after a research trip to Bali, during the course of which a shaman (Hadi Subiyanto) foretells that she will lose all her money, but eventually return to study under him so that he may impart his great wisdom, Liz decides that she needs to bolt from the marriage; much to the puzzlement of husband and audience.

Since there is virtually no exposition as to why she has the sudden change of heart (perfunctory flashbacks down the line do little to clarify), we just have to assume it’s one of those spur-of-the-moment, “I’ve never been to me” moments.

While the ink is still drying on her divorce papers (at least in screen time), Liz tumbles headlong into a relationship with a hunky young off-off Broadway stage actor (James Franco). The lust, however, soon turns to wanderlust, and Liz decides that maybe what she really needs is to take a year off from…everything.

So, leaving her new relationship somewhere in the neutral zone, she embarks on a three-pronged attack in order to “find herself”, first to Italy (eat), then India (pray) and then Bali (love…oops, is that a spoiler?)

So what does she learn? Want the speed-dating version? Here goes! In Italy, they have like, killer pasta and pizza. Awesome! And the gelato…it’s to die for! Oh…and Italians live in the moment, and they talk with their hands…just like the people on Jersey Shore! And when Liz decides to treat her new Italian friends to an all-American style home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with trimmings, one of the Italians, being unfamiliar with our ways and customs, forgets to defrost the bird. But, not to worry-Liz puts it in the oven, they all go to bed, and then, they have turkey for breakfast. How whimsical!

Next stop: India, where Liz learns piety by scrubbing floors at an ashram. Oh, and gurus live in the moment. Then, it’s back to Bali, where she goes back to the shaman who started the whole thing (he lives in the moment). Then, she meets a sexy Brazilian! (Javier Bardem).

Roberts is suitably radiant, flashes her million dollar smile and delivers her patented hearty guffaw right on cue, but she oddly spends a good portion of this very long film as an observer of her character’s journey, rather than an active participant. Consequently, it’s hard for us to really care about what happens to our leading lady; and that is a fatal flaw.

The always wonderful Richard Jenkins (as another American at the ashram) briefly perks up the middle third. But as soon as his character disappears, so does the spirit and energy he brings to the film.

The locales are gorgeous, and there’s plenty of culinary porn for the foodies, but that doesn’t candy-coat Robert’s phoned-in performance and the flat, soap opera-ish dialog (co-written by Murphy and Jennifer Salt). It’s like randomly surfing between Lifetime, The Food Network and The Travel Channel.

Frankly, the Pottery Barn angst on display here is tough to sympathize with in these hard economic times (how many of us can afford the luxury of “taking a year off” to navel-gaze?), and seems bent on perpetrating the Ugly American meme.

In fact, I thought that the depictions of the “colorful locals” encountered by the protagonist on her whistle stops bordered on the kind of colonial stereotyping I assumed Hollywood had abandoned ages ago. You know how they say that “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”? In this case, the trip could not be over soon enough.

Dramedy, Writers

SIFF 2010: The Extra Man **1/2

June 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 22, 2010)

SIFF’s opening night film is an uneven, yet at times drolly amusing dramedy from American Splendor directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. The directors co-scripted with Jonathan Ames (adapting from his source novel). Once again, Berman and Pulcini plunge into a writer’s mind-well, two N.Y.C. writers-a young aspiring novelist (Paul Dano) obsessed with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a playwright (Kevin Kline), who rents him a room. Both characters’ eccentricities pile up faster than you can say “cross-dressers and gigolos”. The film is a quirky, oddball mash-up of The Producers and Midnight Cowboy. John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes also join the fray. Kline’s wondrously insane performance is the main attraction, and Dano officially confirms what I have suspected for some time now: he is the Bud Cort of his generation.

Con Game, Dramedy, Social Satire

SIFF 2009: Poppy Shakespeare ***1/2

June 24, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 13, 2009)

Sometimes I get a little twitch when a movie breaks down the “fourth wall” and a protagonist starts talking to the audience in the opening scene. When it works, it can be quite engaging (Alfie); when it doesn’t (SLC Punk), it seems to double the running time of the film. In the case of Poppy Shakespeare, the device pays off in spades, thanks to the extraordinary charisma and acting chops of an up-and-coming young British thespian by the name of Anna Maxwell Martin.

Martin plays “N”, a mentally troubled young woman who has grown up ostensibly as a ward of the state, shuffled about from foster care to government subsidized mental health providers for most of her life. She collects a “mad money” pension from the government, and spends most of her waking hours at a London “day hospital” (where many of the patients participate on a voluntary basis and are free to go home at night).

In an introductory scene (reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), we learn that most of the patients in Poppy’s particular day ward appear to gather not so much for the therapy group sessions, but to swap tips on the latest loopholes in England’s socialized health care system. Poppy is a a rock star in the group, due to her savvy in working the system (she’s “crazy”, alright…like a fox).

She is a polar opposite to Cuckoo’s Nest hero R.P. McMurphy. Rather than looking for ways to break out of the laughing house, she is always scamming ways to avoid being discharged from state-sponsored care (bye-bye gravy train). She seems perfectly happy to bide time at the hospital by day, and make a beeline to her lonely flat at nights and weekends to gobble meds and shut in with the telly. N’s comfortable routine hits a snag, however when her doctor “assigns” her to mentor a new day patient named Poppy (Naomie Harris).

Unlike the majority of patients in the ward, Poppy’s admittance for observation has been mandated by the state, based on answers she gave on a written personality profile she filled out as part of a job application (some Orwellian overtones there). She desperately implores N to use her knowledge of the system to help her prove to the doctors that she isn’t crazy. In a Catch-22 style twist, the financially tapped Poppy realizes that the only way she can afford the services of the attorney N has recommended to her is to become eligible for “mad money”. In other words, in order to prove that she isn’t crazy, she has to first get everyone to think that she is nuts.

This may sound like a comedy; while there are some amusing moments, I need to warn you that this is pretty bleak fare (on my way out of the screening, I asked an usher if he had a bit of rope handy). That being said, it is well written (Sarah Williams adapted from Clare Allan’s novel) and directed (by Benjamin Ross, who also helmed an excellent sleeper a few years back called The Young Poisoner’s Handbook). The jabs at England’s health care system reminded me a bit of Lindsay Anderson’s “institutional” satires (Britannia Hospital in particular). Harris is very affecting as Poppy, but it is Martin who commands your attention throughout. She has a Glenda Jackson quality about her that tells me she will likely be around for a while. She’s better than good. She’s crazy good.

Dramedy, Family Issues, Food

SIFF 2009: Mid-August Lunch ***

June 23, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 6, 2009)

Eccentric ladyland.

This slice-of-life charmer from Italy, set during the mid-August Italian public holiday known as Ferragosto, was written and directed by Gianni Di Gregorio (who also co-scripted the critically-acclaimed 2009 gangster drama Gomorrah). Light-ish in plot but rich in observational insight, it proves that sometimes, less is more.

The Robert Mitchum-ish Di Gregorio casts himself as Giovanni, a middle-aged bachelor living in Rome with his elderly mother. He doesn’t work, because as he quips to a friend, taking care of mama is his “job”. Although nothing appears to faze the easy-going Giovanni, his nearly saintly countenance is tested when his landlord, who wants to take a little weekend excursion with his mistress, asks for a “small” favor.

In exchange for some forgiveness on back rent, he requests that Giovanni take on a house guest for the weekend-his elderly mother. Giovanni agrees, but is chagrined when the landlord turns up with two little old ladies (he hadn’t mentioned his aunt). Things get more complicated when Giovanni’s doctor makes a house call, then in lieu of a bill asks if he doesn’t mind taking on his dear old mama as well (Ferragosto is a popular “getaway” holiday in Italy).

It’s the small moments that make this film such a delight. Giovanni reading Dumas aloud to his mother, until she quietly nods off in her chair. Two friends, sitting in the midday sun, enjoying white wine and watching the world go by. And in a scene that reminded me of a classic POV sequence in Fellini’s Roma, Giovanni and his pal glide us through the streets of Rome on a sunny motorcycle ride. This mid-August lunch might offer you a somewhat limited menu, but you’ll find that every morsel on it is well worth savoring.

Dramedy, Show Biz

Every comic wants to be an actor: Funny People **

June 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 1, 2009)

I have good news and bad news about writer-director Judd Apatow’s Funny People. The good news is that he’s made a terrific 100 minute film. The bad news is that no one will ever get to see it without suffering through an additional 40 minutes of self-indulgence.

Adam Sandler stars as comic-turned-actor George Simmons, who has become an A-list box office draw through a series of low-brow yet successful comedy films (*cough* type casting *cough*). He lives the requisite movie star bachelor lifestyle to the hilt; soaking in public adulation, living in a Hollywood mansion with a revolving door of beautiful women, etc. His biggest daily chore is sorting through the piles of script offers. Everything in his life is going swimmingly, until the staple of every Disease of the Week Movie appears: The Results of Your Blood Test Are In scene.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the low-rent section of town, we are introduced to a trio of roommates-Ira, Leo and Mark (Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman, respectively) who are much farther down the show biz ladder. Ira and Leo are aspiring stand-up comics; Mark is an actor who has recently got his first major break with a starring role on a middling sitcom. Using their own sliding scale of success, Mark is at the top of the pyramid (he’s on TV!) and Leo has a slight lead over Ira, because he has received kudos from Budd Friedman (to fledgling L.A. comics, a “thumbs up” from the founder of the Hollywood Improv is an anointment by the Pope).

It looks like it’s going to take a miracle to give Ira’s career a boost (so he can quit that day job at the deli); in the meantime he’s just another rubber-faced no-name standing in front of a brick wall on Open Mike Night. His deux ex machina arrives when George Simmons, still reeling from the bad medical news, figures that it might be good therapy to get back to his roots and do some stage time (on a night when Ira also happens to be on the bill). George sees something in Ira’s act that appeals to him; perhaps it reminds him of himself in hungrier days. On impulse, he offers Ira a job as his P.A. It becomes apparent that what George really wants is a genuine friendship before he shuffles off to that Great Gig in the Sky.

Now it would seem that this would be enough of a setup to carry a feature length movie. For most directors. Unfortunately, Apatow’s third act, revolving around an ill-advised attempt on George’s part to rekindle a romance with The One Who Got Away (Leslie Mann) while her husband (Eric Bana) is out of town just goes on and on and on, at the lumbering pace of a brontosaur (Apatowsaurus?) plodding through a Triassic swamp, crushing all semblance of levity in its path.

There is an inordinate amount of screen time given to the two young girls who play Mann’s daughters-revealed in the credits as husband-and-wife Apatow and Mann’s kids; which gives the film a glorified home-movie vibe . Also tiresome: an endless parade of cameos, mostly from well-known comics (ironically, non-standup Eminem is the funniest). It started to remind me of those Cannonball Run films that Burt Reynolds and his pals used to do in the 1970s.

Still, there are some things I liked about the film. Although I will admit that I am not a fan , I thought Sandler was decent enough in his seriocomic role (it reminded me of his work in Punch-Drunk Love). Rogan and Sandler play well off each other, and Hill fires off some of the film’s best one-liners. Newcomer Aubrey Plaza gives a wry turn as a fellow comic that Rogan is crushing on. Torsten Voges is a scene stealer as Sandler’s German doctor; a hysterical exchange in the doctor’s office between Sandler, Rogan and Voges is an instant classic-it’s too bad that the rest of the film can’t quite match up to it.

I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the world of stand-up, because it is during those brief interludes that the film truly shines. Apatow came up from the comedy clubs, so every scene dealing with the creative process, the camaraderie, and, oh yes-the angst and the backstabbing ring absolutely true. I think he could have made a fabulous film just dealing with that subject alone.

But then again, I may be a little biased, because I used to be one of those rubber-faced no-names, standing in front of a brick wall on Open Mike Night. Wait a minute…I had a day job working at a deli, while doing stand up gigs at night. Um, excuse me (sfx knocking on computer screen) does anybody out there need a personal assistant?

Dramedy, Family Issues, School Days, Social Satire

The accidental tsuris: A Serious Man ***1/2

June 20, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 10, 2009)

The noodge-y professor: A Serious Man.

Someone I once worked with in my standup comedy days (my hand to God, I wish I could remember who) had a great bit that he called “Jewish calisthenics”. “OK,” he would exhort the audience, “Here we go…ready? Neck back, and…repeat after me…” (shrug) “Why me? And rest. And again…” (shrug) “Why me?” Well, you had to be there.

Anyway, I thought it was a brilliant distillation of what “Jewish humor” is all about; a rich tradition of comedic expression borne exclusively from a congenital persecution complex and cultural fatalism (trust me on this-I was raised by a Jewish mother).

You know who else was raised by a Jewish mother? Those nice Coen boys-Joel and Ethan. They grew up in a largely Jewish suburban Minneapolis neighborhood (St. Louis Park). But you wouldn’t know it from their films. They nevah call. They nevah write a nice story a mother could love. Instead, it’s always with the corruption, the selfish behavior, and the killing, and the cattle prods…until now.

Well, I don’t know if you would call it a “nice” story, but A Serious Man is the closest that the Coen Brothers have come to writing something semi-autobiographical . They do set their story in a Minnesotan Jewish suburban enclave, in the summer of 1967 (when Joel was 13 and Ethan was 10). God help them, however, if their family was anything like the Gopniks; although if they were, it would explain a lot about the world view they expound in their films.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a “serious man”- a buttoned-down physics professor who can map out the paradoxical quantum mysteries of Schrodinger’s cat, but is stymied as to why his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) suddenly announces to him one day out of the blue that she wants a divorce. To add insult to injury, she wants him to move out of the house as soon as possible, so that the man she wishes to spend the rest of her life with, a smarmy neighborhood widower named Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed) can settle in.

This situation alone would give any self-respecting mensch such tsuris, nu? Yes, it gets worse. Larry gets no sympathy or support from his snotty, self-absorbed daughter (Jessica McManus) or his stoner son (Aaron Wolff), who spends more time obsessing on his favorite TV show F Troop than brushing up on his Hebrew for an upcoming Bar Mitzvah. Larry also has problems at work. And then there is his perennially underemployed brother (Richard Kind) who has become a permanent house guest who spends an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, draining his, erm, cyst.

Teetering on the verge of an existential meltdown, Larry seeks advice from three rabbis, embarking on a spiritual quest in order to glean, “Why me?” The story takes on the airs of a modern fable from this point onward, neatly telegraphed by the film’s opening ten minutes-a blackly comic, “old school” Yiddish folk tale with semi-mystical overtones, reminiscent of Woody Allen’s Love and Death.

In the context of the Coen’s oeuvre, the character of Larry Gopnick is not really so far removed from William Macy’s character in Fargo or Billy Bob Thornton’s character in The Man Who Wasn’t There; sans the murder and mayhem, but sharing the plight of the hapless Everyman, ultimately left twisting in the wind by the detached cruelty of Fate…and the Coens themselves.

The cast is excellent, especially Sthulbarg and Kind, very believable as brothers with a complex relationship, (does their relationship reflect Joel and Ethan’s, I wonder?). I have to mention a wonderful (if brief) performance by Amy Landecker as the sexy neighbor, Mrs. Samsky (channeling Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson), who has a hilarious seduction scene with the uptight Larry.

I think I need to see this film again, because it has interesting layers to it that I don’t think can be fully appreciated in just one viewing. It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s made (gasp!) for adults, and it’s one of the most wildly original films I’ve seen this year.

Apparently there’s buzz from some quarters about the film being “too” Jewish, propagating stereotypes and so on and so forth, the Coens are self-loathing, blah blah blah, but I think that’s silly. Hell, I’ve got relatives that are more “Jewish” than the characters in the film. Besides, the Coens are Jews-is there some law against artists incorporating their heritage into their art? One might as well condemn Phillip Roth, Saul Bellow, Jules Feiffer, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Neil Simon for the same “crime”. So why do they persecute the Jews, huh? Why? (shrug) Why us? (shrug). And repeat…

Art world, Dramedy

Standing in the shadows of love: Medicine for Melancholy ***

June 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 28, 2009)

Don’t let the oddball title of writer-director Barry Jenkins’ film Medicine for Melancholy throw you. It may share its title with an anthology of short stories by Ray Bradbury, but there is nothing “sci-fi” about this down-to-earth indie gem about love, African-American identity and the gentrification of San Francisco’s neighborhoods.

A two-character “morning after” study of a one-night stand in the tradition of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, the film opens with an attractive, 20-something African-American couple waking up and performing their morning ablutions. You sense of a polite, yet awkward deferment between the two as they wordlessly descend the stairs of a very large house that displays ample evidence of a previous evening’s revelry.

Once they find their shoes, and the inevitable “So what was your name again?” formalities are dispensed with over coffee, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo (Tracey Heggins) share a cab. After Jo requests to be dropped off “at the corner”, the two go their separate ways. Of course it doesn’t end there (otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a film). Micah spots Jo’s purse on the floor of the cab, and learns (to his chagrin) that she did not give him her real name. Hmm.

This is a leisurely paced film; yet for the careful observer, there is a lot going on. Micah and Jo spend a day together. After circling warily, they begin to warm to each other. They ride their bikes around San Francisco. Micah accompanies Jo on an errand to an art museum, where her boyfriend (currently out of town) works as a curator. They talk about their jobs. They make love. Despite having only hooked up the night before, they interact with the cozy familiarity of a long-time couple, spending a lazy Sunday together. That is, until they pay a visit to the Museum of the African Diaspora, which precipitates a potentially deal-breaking philosophical debate between the two.

This is where the film’s central theme emerges: How do African-Americans define themselves? Despite the fact that he is a semi-geeky, wisecracking hipster by nature, Micah primarily defines himself as a “black man” who is becoming ever-increasingly marginalized by the creeping gentrification of San Francisco’s traditionally ethnic and/or low-income neighborhoods.

Jo, on the other hand, doesn’t feel that her “blackness” solely defines who she is, and pegs Micah as “…one of those people who thinks they chose February as Black History Month because it’s the shortest month.” Her boyfriend is white; a moot fact to her but a sticking point for Micah (or is it just old-fashioned jealously, cloaked in a self-righteous polemical stance?). Ah, mysteries of love.

One touchstone here (perhaps unconsciously on the part of the filmmaker) is Shadows, John Cassavetes’ 1959 film about the complexities of racial identity and the role that it plays in social/romantic interaction. The film has a naturalistic feel that recalls Cassavetes as well. I was also reminded of Kurosawa’s One Wonderful Sunday, with occasional echoes of Godard and Rohmer. The director’s decision to employ a monochromatic visual look is an astute choice, as it’s all about the perception of “color”.

My only previous awareness of Wyatt Cenac is from his work on The Daily Show; he shows promise as a dramatic actor. The appealing Tracey Heggins has potential as well; she and Cenac have good chemistry. If you tire of the Hollywood grist currently topping the box office, Medicine for Melancholy may just be the perfect tonic .