| E for effort... Despite a solid cast, Lymelife is merely a good, not great, coming-of-age drama
C
| LYMELIFE
Opening Friday
Although the title will be lost on many, chances are the wordplay in Lymelife will be obvious to many Manitobans. Co-writer and director Derick Martini (Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish) mean to be taken quite literally: this movie is about life with the unpredictability of Lyme disease.
Rest assured this is not a maudlin movie-of-the-week, but a coming-of-age drama about an adolescent figuring out what sort of people his parents really are.
Starring real-life siblings Rory and Kieran Culkin, Lymelife focuses on Scott Bartlett (Rory), an average late-'70s teenager experiencing love pangs for the first time. At the same time, he's contending with the notion that his father (Alec Baldwin) may be cheating with the shrill mother (Cynthia Nixon) of his unrequited love (Emma Roberts). Scott has an unwavering admiration for his old man, so conflicting feelings become a natural response.
Rounding out the cast are Timothy Hutton as Roberts' disease-ridden father and Jill Hennessy as the mother of Scott and brother Jimmy (Kieran) - a woman put into the difficult position of looking the other way from her unfaithful husband.
There are obvious allusions to Ang Lee's magnificent The Ice Storm, but Lymelife doesn't even come close to approaching theat film's depicted complexities of marital infidelities confusing adolescents' views toward women. Instead, the flashing twee indicators almost become too much to take; like American Beauty, this movie is vastly pleased with itself in an all-too smug fashion.
The ending, in particular its closing shot, is jaw-dropping in its miscalculations on how this story should conclude. Without giving too much away, boatloads of questions are raised within the last minute, resulting in a denouement that isn't earned in the slightest.
The musical selection is fun and eclectic: Bob Dylan to Ricky Nelson's cowboy ode from Rio Bravo (although the latter playing in a happening pool hall seems unlikely).
Baldwin offers another in his long-line of palooka characterizations: vaguely dim-witted individuals who are strong willed in pursuit of accumulating wealth. Hutton is a mess of twitchy nerves, with a thin moustache gracing his face that's become a lazy shorthand for pathetic. He is decent, as always, but the role as written leaves one wondering what makes this guy tick (pun unintended).
Rory Culkin is solid in the growing-pains sort of role similar to his brother Kieran's turn in Igby Goes Down. Thankfully, director Martini doesn't expound too heavily on the idea that Scott is some sort of precocious child destined for intellectual pursuits elsewhere from his stuffy Long Island world. Overall, he's just your average, somewhat maladjusted type. Maybe he'll make an uninteresting movie about himself someday.
Oh, wait.
— Aaron Graham |
Uptown
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