Igby

There's no question aspects of this are quite brutal. But the theme of the story dictates they would be so.

Igby Goes Down is about a kid in nowhere's land. He doesn't know where he's going in life and responds to this by being a rebel in everything. Add to this his parental instability with a schizophrenic father and a tyrannical mother and you can understand why he'd be a little mixed up.

In many ways it is a coming of age story, but in others it is too dark to be that. Indeed there is an ambivalence of themes with hope and despair featured in equal measure.

As Igby, Kieran Culkin excels. He's outstanding, the best thing in the movie - which given the quality of his peers, such as a sinister and agenda-ridden Jeff Goldblum, a monstrous and hierarchial Susan Sarandon, a confused and tortured Bill Pullman and a squeaky clean upstart in Ryan Phillippe, is no mean feat at all.

Performances are uniformly excellent, the story involving, and the themes well explored.

Well done all round.

I had to drive to effin Antwerp, Belgium to see this movie, because it was taken out of Dutch cinemas after running just for one week. And that is something that I don't understand, or maybe I do, because this is not the typical Hollywood feel-good movie. The story could have been based on a early nineties novel by Jay McInerney or Bret Easton Ellis, but it is an original screenplay by writer and director Burr Steers. The mood is very dark, the acting is top shelf and the oneliners are sharp as razorblades. Kieran Culkin and Ryan Philippe are perfectly (type)casted and the choice of music is plain wonderful. The scene where Igby runs off through Central Park accompanied by Coldplay's Don't Panic is close to perfection. I enjoyed this movie very much and I think it paints a very accurate picture of the lives of spoiled, rich kids. Go see it!

Igby caught me by surprise; I hadn't heard much of the film before seeing it and rented it on a hunch. What a beautiful, weird, sad, funny coming-of-age story and what a cast. The performances throughout are amazing. I absolutely adore this film. 8 stars out of 10

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, and the kid from Home Alone (1992)...

OK, not literally the kid from Home Alone, but his twin brother...

OK, not literally his twin brother, but his brother who looks and talks exactly like him.

This is the story of what one would call the "aristocracy" of New York. The characters are the pampered, entitled, nonchalantly confident members of the wealthy class or the intelligentsia of New York.

Igby, played by Something Culkin, is a Holden Caufield-esque rich brat who hates his family. The film is mostly about him meandering around New York, meeting women, attending social events, and trying to stay away from his mother and brother, who are trying to straighten him out or, barring that, get rid of him.

He claims he hates his brother because of his political beliefs. It does indeed look like the sibling has a more uptight personality than him. It's unclear why he hates his mother, but she's shown to be domineering and uptight as well. You can essentially sum it up as a biography about an emo kid raging over first-world problems.

There are some good plot twists and you get to see Goldblum in as close to an action role as I think he's ever done. The directing is also well-done - calm, serene, and what I would characterize as "clean drama" directing.

Yet the star of the show here is the dialogue. The writer of this film could be the next Oscar Wilde. The dialogue is among the wittiest I've heard in film and the actors really deliver it and play off of each other well. It reminds me of "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Honourable Mentions: 1: OC and Stiggs (1987) is stylistically very similar in terms of the pacing and camera work. It's also similar in other regards. It's about two characters without real problems who are determined to make some up to pass the time. And they're impossibly smooth and calm while doing it.

2: Quigley Down Under (1990): A cheap white saviour action flick about an American (Tom Selleck) who saves aboriginals in Australia with a modified supergun and the skills to wield it. It has no connection to this movie except for the title which is, amusingly, very similar.

I was very impressed by the movie and all the actors taking part in it. The story is very rich and allows the spectator to get emotionally involved in multiple ways. There is a good thing about a movie that finishes and leaves you with the feeling of wanting to know more about many of the characters in the movie. I particularly love all the unexpected moments, lines and situations in the movie without being exagerated or out of place. Excellent, for people who wants to see something different and still mainstream.