Review of Lymelife (2008) by Nema P — 01 May 2009

This soi-disant comedy is really not the oh-so-clever, coming-of-age flick that it thinks it is. Most of the jokes were expected, and my having expected them, they were not that great on the delivery. I found myself forcing the laughter in scenes when the dark comedy commanded me.

Kieran and Rory Culkin are adorable together as brothers, but two good actors acting off each other cannot make a film, as we saw in _The Soloist_. The boys play brothers growing up in or escaping from a dysfunctional, well-to-do Long Island family, where they begin to alienate their father whom they regard as an abusive tool, for stealing their mother from the warmth of Queens and then cheating on her while abandoning each of his children for greener pastures of avarice and the American dream, which --I can only assume-- for the Culkins, must have been method acting.

Someone said this film was a black comedy that echoes something Royal Tenenbaums-ish or at least Wes-Anderson-esque. Not even close! Watch Southpark if you want to laugh at dark comedy, but please don't come here.

This film is no better than the typical teenage romance, and not even as funny as other mainstream films, such as Sexdrive. The problem, as previously stated: it's funny in an expected way, and depressing in just the way you expect, and then it just lingers there on the abyss of annoying, when Baldwin appears to turn a new leaf as a dad.

One strategy of humor is to overwhelm the audience with the unexpected. This film is not even funny most of the time-- most of the time, it's just plain sad. Yes, Rory Culkin and Emma Roberts end up bonking in the end, just like the protagonists in every other teen romantic comedy.

But aren't we all just a little bit sick of fucking being the ultimate end of every teen romance story arc? Like, that's it, that's the point right there, and watching Culkin and Roberts make out or make love or whatever is supposed to make up for 1 hour and 20 minutes of sullen grief that isn't even ironic enough to be comedic.

Do you remember how each of the Disney cartoons used to end with the woman kissing the man, and afterward we could all go home & happy, cuz the kiss happened, and the story could end then? Well, sex is the new "kiss," and that awkward silence that follows afterward is the telltale sign that the romantic arc is over, except in movies like _Juno_, where playing anti-folk music on guitars with your baby-daddy is the new kiss.