Oh, let’s hope Sundance 2016 isn’t defined by the music of Train.
More Top Picks Best Premium Robotic Pool Cleaners For Inground Pools
“Other People” frequently incorporates the band’s “Drops of Jupiter”—a song I confess to liking in spite of itself; believe it or not Train’s 1998 self-titled debut is pretty good—but it’s far from the worst repetition on display here. Very quickly first-time feature writer-director Chris Kelly, a writer on “SNL,” shows a fondness for asking, “What if a crazy character popped up to add some goofiness to the sorrow?” Which is OK in small doses, but this is a medium-to-large dose, with Wacky Neighbor and Odd Man at Bar and Cartoonish Young Kid creating some very rocky, unfunny transitions among discussions of loneliness and death.
David (Jesse Plemons) is a struggling comedy writer who has returned to his family’s home in Sacramento to help care for his mom (Molly Shannon), who has cancer and a diagnosis that is not improving. David still feels awkward around his dad (Bradley Whitford), who was anything but supportive when David came out a decade ago, and struggles to connect with his sisters (Maude Apatow, Madisen Beaty) in any meaningful way either. Unfortunately for Kelly and “Other People,” we just got a really intimate portrait of a young man caring for his sick mother in “James White” (which premiered at Sundance 2015), not to mention Shannon’s presence in the far more original “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” It’s lazy to resort to “other movies did it better,” but sometimes that’s just the truth, and so recently.
Which isn’t to say Kelly, who oddly has nothing to say about comedy’s role in the grieving process through David’s attempt to keep writing, doesn’t include some particularly affecting moments or personal touches–like David saying he cut up pieces of an old catalogue he used to utilize for self-pleasure, then soaked them with water and put them in separate garbage cans, all because he was afraid of being outed. Maybe that is taken from real life (Kelly is gay and the movie is semi-autobiographical), and maybe it’s not. But that, and the scene in which Plemons (the alum of “Friday Night Lights” and “Breaking Bad” and “Fargo” who absolutely deserves more starring roles after this) breaks down in a grocery store, are examples of what “Other People” doesn’t do enough: Find its own, consistent, memorable angle on a story that very clearly shouldn’t succumb to comic relief from people not knowing how to use Skype.
2.5 stars (out of four)
WHAT DO YOU THINK? EMAIL [email protected] WHEN YOU SEE A MOVIE AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU THINK HE GOT IT RIGHT OR GOT IT WRONG. ONCE A MONTH WE’LL PUBLISH SOME OF THE LETTERS. NOTE: COMMENTARY INCLUDING PROFANITY OR ANY OTHER OFFENSIVE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.