A Picture of You

An hour and half of watching two grumpy children bicker and basically grumble the entire time they are dealing with the task of cleaning out their recently dead mothers home. The plot climax (sorry about the pun) is the discovery of some explicit pics of their deceased mother on their mothers computer. This 'revelation' is followed by more grumbling mixed with mortification that the mother had the audacity to have sex. No character development. No context for any of the characters grumpy demeanors beyond (perhaps) the death of the mother (although they don't seem too broken up about it), and the one sibling having resentment over having to care for the mother before her passing. If this is what passes for meaningful life experiences in the lives of hipsters we are all doomed. In a way, its like a really twisted, shallow version of The Big Chill (which was somewhat shallow too).

An under-the-radar first feature with a great cast (incl. Teyonah Parris of "Chi- Raq," before she got famous for not getting an Oscar nom) and a pretty solid script. I felt like some of the indie atmospherics could have been cut to make room for a little backstory--maybe a line or two of not-too-obvious dialogue about what Kyle and Jen have been doing all their lives; do we ever find out what Professor Wu was a professor of, btw?

Still, I liked the way the relationship between the two squabbly sibs is fleshed out in all sorts of subtle ways--Jen makes an awkward joke about how they're being "racially profiled" as the only two Asians in a rural diner; Kyle shows how much he admires his younger hipster sister by trying the same line on someone else, even after it bombs the first time... Other comedic touches are sparingly but skillfully applied. Big ups to Lucas Dixon, as Jen's doughy boyfriend, for one perfect line reading ("We should get pies that are really... good!"). Wait for it!

My one serious criticism: Too bad that w/d J. P. Chan seems to have felt that the tension that sustains the wispy plot could only be resolved with a farcical "action" sequence that spoils the mood a bit (another reviewer mentioned "Scooby-Doo"; I was thinking "Goonies"). The rest of the film is charming and quite relatable. I was initially curious about "A Picture of You" because my bro and I went through a similar ordeal a couple of years ago, in a much less tidy house (didn't Prof. Wu even have an attic to fill up with metal coat hangers and useless crap?). Unlike a lot of crowd-funded indies that turn up on Netflix, this one has a real emotional core to it.

The pacing is glacial, the characters are flat and boring, and the movie looks like a college freshman edited it in the free version of Final Cut Pro for their intro to film class.