Review of Peep World (2010) by Jeff S — 02 Jul 2013

In "Peep World," misery is nothing new for the Meyerwitz siblings. Jack's(Michael C. Hall) architecture business is foundering badly, just as he is expecting his first child with his wife Laura(Judy Greer). It has taken Joel(Rainn Wilson) eight tries to pass the bar exam and is so deep in the hole that he begs Jack for help on a regular basis. At least, Nathan(Ben Schwartz) is successful in writing a roman a clef about his family, thereby making the life of their sister Cheri(Sarah Silverman), an unemployed actress, even worse. That's all before the annual birthday dinner for their father Henry(Ron Rifkin), a wealthy property developer.

In its cringe inducing way, "Peep World" feels like a particularly misguided and crude pilot episode of which the best performances are from those on the periphery, Judy Greer, Guillermo Diaz, Kate Mara & Taraji P. Henson, who know enough not to force things. To be fair, there is one classic meta moment where fiction collides with reality.(Oh wait. Now, I get that other joke and instantly wish I hadn't.) Otherwise, the movie serves as an object lesson as to why one should not use Norman Mailer as a role model and never, ever go to a doctor one finds on Craigslist. Seriously, I don't know what the movie is trying to say, as all of the central characters can simply be written off as screw-ups, even Jack, who has his own secret. If they had been struggling to get anywhere, that would have been a definite improvement and would have grounded the movie in some kind of reality.