[yasr_overall_rating]
A struggling comedy writer, fresh off a breakup and in the midst of the worst year of his life, returns to Sacramento to care for his dying mother.
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Chris Kelly’s “Other People” sees a wide array of top-notch character actors anchor a drama that is by turns comic and tragic, if overly dependent on manipulative tactics. Kelly’s background as a writer for shows like the luridly hilarious “Broad City” and “Saturday Night Live” is evident – there are moments of genuine humor and insight amongst all the bathos. In his feature-length debut, the writer/director shows promise; he just needs to tone down on the melodrama.
The opening scene is fantastic, plunging us straight into the immediate aftermath of a mother’s death. Stricken by grief, her family is sprawled in a darkly-lit bedroom, sobbing uncontrollably. The phone rings, goes to voice-message. Their deceased mother’s oblivious friend just found out about the terminal sickness and decided to express her condolences, while in a Taco Bell drive-thru lane. Her dialogue with the Taco Bell employee, juxtaposed against the tremendous mourning of the family, sets up the tone perfectly: morbidly funny, incisive and relentlessly dark.
We then go back in time: a struggling comedy writer David (Jesse Plemons), a “New York City boy,” comes home to Sacramento and awkwardly mingles at a New Year party. His spunky grandmother Ronnie (June Squibb), sisters Alex (Judd Apatow’s offspring, Maude, all “grown up”) and Rebeccah (Madisen Beaty), “asshole” homophobic father Norman (Bradley Whitford), and a slew of other mildly quirky individuals all torment him with twangy folk songs and questions about his career. He escapes to chat with his ailing mother Joanne (Molly Shannon).
David is pessimistic and self-absorbed, but he means well. “Now I’ll have no mom, basically no dad, no boyfriend, no job,” he rants to his friend at a club. “I just want my mom to die thinking I’m doing okay, that’s all,” he tells the same friend later. That pretty much summarizes the film’s plot (or lack of thereof): David’s struggle to self-actualize, as his mother dies slowly, and her family deals with their demons.
“Other People” amounts to a series of sketches, riddled with slight philosophical rumination and resonant little moments. Joanne stops her son from biting his nails after a brief-but-searing exchange. A grocery store employee takes her time scanning products, which leads to an unfortunate meeting. Joanne can’t stand watching her dog lick its genitals while throwing up from chemotherapy. Norman refuses to come up to meet his son’s boyfriend. David throws up during a date and then proceeds to manically search for laxatives in a supermarket… My favorite comes when a character tells David, “No, you’re ‘other people’ to ‘other people’”, as a man in a wheelchair rolls by. It’s all about perspective, you see. Those poignant moments display Kelly’s mastery of tone, the “heartbreaking-drama-followed-by-unexpected-wit” thing he does so well.
Jesse Plemons may currently be one of our most underrated actors. After terrific turns in TV’s “Breaking Bad” and “Fargo,” and a solid run of memorable supporting characters in films like “Black Mass” and “Bridge of Spies,” he finally gets to lead a feature film. His David is conflicted, kind, arrogant and imminently watchable. Molly Shannon gives what may be her subtlest performance, in a career of manic, eccentric characters that haunted poor Molly ever since her prolonged stint on SNL. I can’t imagine what she had to go through to get inside the mind of Joanne. Bradley Whitford, an always-dependable thespian, provides gravitas and elegance as David’s father. Zach Woods, still mostly known for his characters Gabe in “The Office” and Donald in “Silicon Valley,” portrays a less showy side in a scene where his character Paul discusses masturbation with David, his boyfriend. Oh, and an extra shout-out goes to the young J.J. Totah; an entire film could revolve around his character Justin, who appears up all-too-briefly in “Other People.”
That said, the film is not without its glaring faults. Visually, it’s pretty run-of-the-mill, with generic shots portraying suburban Americana – you’ve seen those frames a million times in similar indie dramas. The director fails to pack a punch when it comes to novelty in execution. Those who have been following my reviews know how I feel about cancer-centric dramas, and while this one thankfully has great actors to sell it, it still is manipulative by its very nature. You’d have to be heartless not to emphasize and care for a person – especially one as likable as Molly Shannon – who’s slowly deteriorating into nothing.
That point is particularly emphasized in a heartrending – and scathingly manipulative – sequence of the family trio – dad, mom, son – discussing post-mortem details over milkshakes. You’d have to be a robot not to cry, but I struggle to see its point. All it’s doing is reinforcing the grimness of this all-too-real situation (I have dealt with it myself) and provides no answers on how to cope with it (how could it?). The monthly countdown to the day of death doesn’t help matters.
Luckily, there are enough real, tender, funny and touching moments to counterbalance the viscous sap. “Other People” also gets props for what some would call a brave, minimalist approach to storytelling, especially in an age of high-concepts and talking dragons. It deals with self-absorption, reaching for the stars, basic human kindness and serves as a gentle reminder that we only get one life on this earth, and every day counts. Here’s hoping the overall impact of Kelly’s next feature will be more visually (and aurally) stimulating – and less maudlin.
In theaters September 9th
