Review of Igby Goes Down (2002) by Stuart K — 08 Jan 2012

This represents something of a dry run for an updated Catcher in the Rye. It's a biting and caustic dark dramedy about Igby Slocumb- a rich and sardonic rich kid who hates his family and rebels at every chance he gets, trying to find an existence he can be happy with. His mother is a pill popper who comes from old money and is very overbearing. His father is schizophrenic and currently resides in an institution. His older brother Ollie is the type of well to do college guy with nothign but success in his future. And then there's Igby's godfather D.H., a wealthy and powerful guy whose status as Ollie's benefactor sees him play a rather questionably larger than normal role in his life for a non-mafia godfather.

On his road to rebellion, Igby goes from school to school, then military school before ending up crashing in on New York's bohemian scene where he gets invovled with D.H.'s trophy mistress Rachel, her artist friend Russell, and a nice older, bored Jewish girl named Sookie.

This is a big mix of satire, colorful characters, wittiness, humor, and pathos. It's also rather twisted and pretty weird at times. It's a well done nad entertainign film, though I did make the mistake of watching it in a double feature with The Squid and the Whale. Now my chances of having a happy rest of the day are pretty well non-existant. Oh well. At least the movies were good.

Keiran Culkin is great as Igby, and, even though he's not yet achieved the household name recognition of Macaulay, he's definitely the more accomplished and better actor. Susan Sarandon seems to be having fun as Igby's mother Igby, and Ryan Phillippe excels as doing characters such as Ollie. Even if it is typecasting, he's still solid. Jeff Goldblum just radiates awesome smarminess as D.H. and I enjoyed (just about) every moment he was on screen. Claire Danes is terrific as Sookie, and Amanda Peet is really good as Rachel, and I'm jealous that Culkin (his character, rather) got to hook up with both of them. Bill Pullman's role is limited, but important, and he does a nice job. Harris is just batty, but fun.

As a big fan of Catcher in the Rye, I dug this, even though it didn't grab me as mucch as that one did (or at least used to). In many ways I'm still very much like the leads from both wroks and can relate to them, despite being a bit older and having a more mature take on the world than I used to. All in all, this is good stuff, though it's not gonan be for everyone. If you like snotty rebellious bohemians and don't always see the glass as half full, I think you'll find something to enjoy here.