Growing Up and Other Lies

I was fortunate enough to catch the premiere screening last month followed by an insightful Q&A. Wonderfully scripted and directed by Danny Jacobs and Darren Grodsky. A tremendously fun and energetic love letter to Manhattan. Beautifully shot in an array of familiar and not so familiar locations, showing the appeal of both the rhythm and noise of the busy city streets as well as the haunting beauty found in forgotten dilapidation. Consistently funny and engrossing with a charming and skilled cast. Highlights include Danny Jacobs lovable performance contrasting the deadpan curmudgeon Wyatt Cenac. I'm not sure if it inspired me to explore Manhattan, or just made me feel like they took care of it for me. Loved it. Watch it!

The bromantic comedy called Growing Up and Other Lies is about true burgeoning adulthood and the malarkey that comes with it.

When one of the members of a quartet bromance of near-thirty-somethings decides to leave Manhattan for, of all places, Ohio, the guys take him on a 260 block pilgrimage down the length of the island as a send off in Growing Up and Other Lies.

Of the friends we have Jake (Josh Lawson) the struggling artist returning to Ohio for whom these characters take this pilgrimage. Rocks (Adam Brody) a teacher, Billy (Danny Jacobs) a lawyer, and Gunderson (Wyatt Cenac) a laconic misanthrope take it upon themselves to use Jake's final days in the city as a send off to NYC by traveling through all its neighborhoods, but their ulterior motive is to convince Jake to stay and forgo the responsibilities that draw him back to Ohio.

It is very likely some people will not like this indie film, the characters are childish and painfully resistant to acting like the mature adults their ages suggest. The theme of the struggle to make it and romanticism of New York City has been bludgeoned to death. Their friendship can be likened to the regressing effect hanging with your high school buddies has on one's dominant personality. At its heart, the plot of Growing Up and Other Lies is the changing dynamic and disillusioning effect adulthood has when its harsh realities are far from the ideal one imagines.

The characters do not have anything unique about their personalities, but the dynamic works enough and is believable they were friends once as they poke fun at one another. My favorite character of the four was Gunderson who was responsible for a few laughs during the film. All the characters are comical in a Man Child kind of way, so perhaps older film viewers will not be as charmed by the infantile banter and bickering that represents the majority of the film.

In the end nothing much happens in the film and no arc of development exists in either the plot or the characters' development. In a way, its poignant and perfect given the subject matter of a film titled Growing Up and Other Lies. As a late twenty-something who is also resistant to responsibility, adulthood and falling short of aspirational expectations, I was amused enough to see the film to the end – but then again, I like these types of films.

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Completly waste of Time, you Will only see guys being like stupid teenagers and they think is funny because they are in their thirties.

I lasted 5mins before I had to do the honorable thing, you'll see.

From the outset you have to deal with a premise of Adult middle aged men that want to go back to being teenagers. Except watching someone else other than yourself do it is cringe beyond all expectations.

There's the alpha, the geeky short sidekick, the token black dude and the relatable all-rounder.

There is no nostalgia, no dead bodies, no funny banter, what you get is spitting over a bridge onto oncoming cars by someone that's just sealed a high power merger on the same day.

There's 1 star for seeing some scenic Manhattan area codes and another for the miracle of this going from script to screen.

And the film has showed us that young males under 35 years of age, can be still awkwardly called "Man Child". it's sometimes quite difficult and troublesome for a young guy to deal with so many things at the same time. sometimes they don't even know how to deal with them. they have to use 'sense and sensibility' to distinguish what they really like, love and want to do for their whole lives after they have been tagged as "adults", yet deep down in their hearts, they are still so afraid of taking responsibility for themselves and those who around them.

This film actually told us that live in New York might not be THAT great. Lot of time, you're just getting by and getting older and older at the same time. There are things and places that you do want to get back or revisit, but once you made those possible, the feelings might not what you really wanted. Time changed everything, and your financial status would also twist your point of view to almost everything. But the most fragile and irrevocable thing is the relationship, once break up, it'll never feel the same, just like a shattered mirror, even you have found and retrieved every broken piece and put them together, the image would never look the same.

This is not a bad film, and it reminds me a film I enjoyed greatly, "Old Joy (2006)". It's about two old friends spent couple of days in Oregon's wildness. They were still good friends, but they knew that they had been growing apart, because everything changed when they grew older. If you enjoyed watching this one, you might like to check that one out, which in my opinion, is much better.