Apr 25, 2003 10:45 AM
1542 Views
(Updated Apr 25, 2003 12:42 PM)
Burr ''Flock of Seagulls'' Steers’ Igby Goes Down is a quirky, ambitious and corybantic little thing to behold, retooling the Wes Anderson structure past the summits of inventive wit and into inventive cynicism. While kind of disowning Anderson’s sagacity for French New Wave (though it features some scenes near '60s art house) and adopting the auteur’s wacky distortion of familial relations Igby Goes Down achieves entertaining, if jejune heights, that would comprise Anderson’s films if they weren’t obsessively commanded by the man himself. Rambunctious and flavorful, it swoons and careens the viewer much like the smooth jive and congenial performance of an expertly sarcastic Kieran Culkin, Macaulay’s younger brother, of course. Dressing the film with some rather feather-light production values and positioning inconsistencies, Igby Goes Down is not without quite a few errors.
The atmosphere, though friendly and germane, is somewhat of an aimless milieu, fine for the story’s environ, but filmmaking-wise it’s watched without much amusement. On the other hand, this thematic wandering and concrete-less plot-line supplies our protagonist with his most challenging task, going in the right direction by his own initiative. A clownish and psychologically eccentric symbiosis in the vein of teenage misanthropy, rambling considerably less cohesive than, say, Rushmore but in comparison to Bottle Rocket is roughly equal, Igby Goes Down is hopelessly formulaic indie fare with a wondrous mainstream cast, and that style of formula was undoubtedly the attractiveness for convoking the large cast of frequent Hollywood conformists. Oddly enough the film resembles something of a labor of love, and perhaps it is bearing in mind it was also written by the mentioned Steers, and that it’s smartly perfected in its writing stage says something else for the next feature co-penned by Steers, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which appears lethal just by premise and title. The lack of Steers’ conviction seems to lie within the unbalanced nature and disposability of the story, suffering the film a great deal and dropping the amassment of potential for an irritating goose chase in the Oedipal mold. Its occasional misinterpretation of the Wes Anderson method reveals as both a good omen and an inherit flaw for the production.
Attempting to concoct his own style for claim the inexperienced Steers knows his shortcomings and shows it, almost a shame that Tarantino didn’t impart noticeable advice for the sometimes-actor, on Q’s own sets. Igby Goes Down: being the adventures of a self-described modern day Holden Caulfield, 15-year-old Igby (Culkin), who escapes his bitter life as the progeny of an “old money” East Coast family and journeys from boarding school to military school to an uninhibited experience in New York City, basically getting by on his own through his savage drollness. He encounters an assortment of seductresses in the forms of Amanda Peet, Claire Danes and Jared Harris, while claiming his adulterous Uncle D.H.’s (Jeff Goldblum) spacious get-a-way pad as his own new home. Igby’s perpetually inebriated mother (Susan Sarandon) and older young-Republican lothario of a brother (Ryan Phillippe who, continuing on the route he currently is, may just be forgotten by the mainstream altogether) attempt to corral the wayward boy’s free-spirited precocity, only to enact their deep-seeded feelings of animosity for each other. The boy witnesses and comes to understand his schizophrenic father’s (Bill Pullman) madness, finding the comic trajectory towards actual maturation increasingly uphill.
Igby Goes Down is far too derivative to be an original work and isn’t uninteresting enough to go ignored, so it settles for a place in the (unfortunately) apathetic middle. Not lethargic by appearance but alarmingly superficial, despite the bulk of its message, and visually scrawled as if resentful and rushed. The film is a paradox in need of direction. Parallel to the plot the film itself presents the challenge of finding one’s way and purpose in spite of obstacles, but that said concept is explored by Igby Goes Down there isn’t any obvious or subtle implication towards self-allusion or reference. And by interpretation only does this appear to be actualized in conjunction with the film, and that’s stretching things a bit as it is. Nonetheless Steer’s debut is an enjoyable coming-of-age, its nostalgia redolent in the material and much of the emotion sincere. It certainly must be worthy of some praise if after months of viewing it I at long last take the time to complete a review and its impact still faintly resonating.
