Review of The Only Living Boy in New York (2017) by Nilufer R — 09 Dec 2018

There's a genre of films that focus on rich New Yorkers philosophising about life direction and familial strife and have nice quotes in them, great casts and usually feature at least one character who writes novels (or is trying to).

I find watching these films to be safe, and comfortable, and enjoyable with sparks of great direction or writing or acting, or sometimes all three. I like them a lot. This film started as one of those, but then became derailed towards the end.

The setup is nice and simple and messy. A young man (of indeterminate age - 28? 19?) discovers his father is having an affair, and over the course of finding out more, falls for the mistress. There's 90 minutes of drama in there already.

Add the cold relationship between son and father, fragile bipolar mother and a wise, mysterious, new neighbour for the boy to discuss and explore this dynamic with and you're off to the flippin' races.

The cast is good as well. Pierce Brosnan can play a disapproving prick really well, the mistress role isn't given much to do other than be attractive and flirty but if you're going to get someone to do those things you can do a lot worse than Kate Beckinsale and if I ever have a difficult moral situation crop up in my life I hope I get to talk it out with a wise, alcoholic neighbour played by Jeff Bridges.

Kersey Clemons crops up as well in a small role and I do like Kersey Clemons. The problem comes most of the way through, when this story resolves fairly quickly, only to be replaced with an entirely new story, that seems largely unconnected with the previous story in theme or subject.

It's a real shame, as it leaves the film on a down, and no amount of nice shots of New York or Simon and Garfunkel songs can counteract.