Igby Goes Down (2002)
Written and directed by Burr Steers

Putrid, pretentious, hostile, and hollow, Igby Goes Down is a movie that thinks a lot more of itself than the viewer will. Like The Opposite of Sex and The Last Days of Disco (both wretched in their own special ways), Igby strives for such profound misanthropy that there is ultimately no reason to try to connect with it. It's like the hipster cynic you meet at a party who thinks he can impress everyone by telling World Trade Center jokes. Personally, I'd rather just have a few drinks and mingle.

The story concerns a prep school burnout (Kieran Culkin) with emotional issues he doesn't want to face, and the bitter, disconnected people in his life: vacant brother (pouty Ryan Phillippe in yet another one-note performance), brutal mother (Susan Sarandon, about the only good thing in the movie), crazy father (Bill Pullman, trying hard and not making it work), sleazoid godfather (Jeff Goldblum, at least not stammering for once), depressed pseudo-girlfriend (Claire Danes, cementing her descent into Winona Ryder-hood), and angry druggie lover (Amanda Peet, who simply needs to go away). Pretty much everyone's "quirky," unlikeable, poorly drawn, and poorly acted. The trying-desperately-to-be witty dialogue comes cluttering out as if from a toddler with a mouthful of Legos. Horrible, horrible, yucky bullshit.

Like most callow black comedies, this one pulls its punches at the end by going for an emotionally redeeming payoff, but it's transparent and easy. If you're going to do a black comedy, by gum, fucking do it. Follow it as far as it will go. Don't try to smooth out the edges. This movie mainly succeeded in putting me into a foul mood, not because it was so challenging and disturbing, but because it wasn't.

It's the anti-Rushmore. Or to put it in the succinct and perfect words of the person I watched it with, "Igby can suck a dick."

the finger

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Lalena Kisses