| Overall Grade: |
D+ |
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| Story: |
D+ |
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| Acting: |
C+ |
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| Direction: |
D |
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| Visuals: |
C+ |
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Weird Isn't Always Funny
by Jersey Joe (movies profile)
Nov 5, 2007
12
of
13 people found this review helpful
I'm not one who walks out on or turns off a movie until it's over. I got halfway through this film and shut it off.
The story centers on Augusten, who we meet as a young boy and then as a young man. He is boring and uninteresting. This would not be so awful if those quirky characters around him were actually interesting. They are not.
Annette Benning plays the boy's mother who has delusions of being a prominent poet. She has no grip on reality and blames her husband (Alec Baldwin) for most of her problems. Baldwin plays the husband reasonably well given what little the character is given to do in the story.
Benning's character goes to a shrink, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). Finch is a weird man with ideas that seem much crazier than the problems he is allegedly solving. It occurs to me that this sounds amusing. Somehow it wasn't amusing on the screen.
Inexplicably, Benning allows Dr. Finch to become her son's legal guardian and this is after we have seen the extreme weirdness of the Finch household. Finch's wife (Jill Clayburgh) eats kibble as she watches TV. His oldest daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) is eerily similar to the weird but uninteresting daughter in the Royal Tenenbaums (also played by Gwyneth Paltrow). The younger daughter (Evan Rachael Wood) seems attracted to Augusten and tries to administer electric shock therapy to him.
Joseph Fiennes plays a man who had previously been adopted by Dr. Finch. He and Augusten meet up and both admit they're gay and go on to have a sexual encounter together. It's creepy and awkward as Augusten is young and doesn't seem sure he's actually gay. He then goes to his mother's house where he walks in on his mother and another woman who are about to get romantic themselves.
The weirdness doesn't work as funny because Augusten, as the protagonist, isn't interesting. He seems like a sad victim. An entry into a world of weirdness needs a character the audience can relate to bring us along with them. Augusten is a bit weird himself and therefore is not the guy we need to help us navigate this maze of madness. |
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