Momma's Man

This is simply one of the finest independent films I've ever seen, a story told with minimal dialogue but maximum heart and soul. Anyone who can't understand why Mikey is scared to leave his parents' home (and there seem to be a few of those shallow folks writing on this board) should get into therapy right away. In any case, Azazel Jacobs has remarkable insight and considerable writing and directorial skill, and his parents are wonderful as the parents in the film. Meanwhile, Matt Boren seems not to be getting enough praise for his amazing performance as Mikey. He's a fine and resourceful actor with a very expressive face. This movie is marvelous, and a completely must-see.

The problem with this film is not the acting, editing, and direction. Those are fine. The problem is the story. I found it aggravating.

A married man living in L.A. travels to New York City on business. He uses the opportunity to visit his parents in Manhattan. Reunited with his old bed, toys and comic books, this presumed mature man makes a gradual psychological descent into adolescence, reclaiming his status as momma's boy.

The whole film is taken by this slow and gently grinding descent. I simply could not connect with such a narrative. The only thing that kept me from exiting the theater were the parents, the sane side of this story. The mother is naturally happy to have her son back and be a well-meaning pain-in-the-neck while the sensible father becomes progressively more concerned with his son's infantile behavior.

This film is certain to draw radically opposite opinions. When I saw it, a number of people left after thirty minutes. Friends, associates and fans of the director gave him a standing ovation.

I saw this movie at Sundance Film Festival last night and it was horrible.

This is the story of a guy with no life and no personality who can't face his own problems and instead refuses to leave his parent's apartment.

The plot drags along and the characters are painfully boring and uninteresting.

Dozens of theatergoers walked out in the middle of this film and I wish I had, I'm not going to be getting that time back.

Do yourself a favor and go see one of the other great independent films traveling the film festival circuit and dump this disaster.

Living away from parents, having a job, a wife, and children are ingredients that suggest maturity but do not guarantee it. Mikey (Matt Boren), a recently married man in his thirties, comes from California to visit his parents in New York and falls into a psychological paralysis that keeps him from accepting the reality of his adult life. Shot in the actual loft on Chambers Street in which he grew up, native New York director Azazel Jacobs' extraordinary Momma's Man zeroes in on our inability to let go, complete the past, and move on. While his wife Laura (Dana Varon) and their infant daughter wait for him in California, Mikey returns from the airport to his parent's home, invents a story that the flight was canceled because of mechanical problems, and stays and stays. Ignoring his wife's urgent phone messages, he convinces himself that it is okay to stay for a while.

Jacobs, the son of experimental film director Ken Jacobs, has created a character in Mikey who has obvious problems yet whose sweetness reaches out to us even if we do not fully understand the source of his aberration or even believe that he could really be the son of two very intellectual artists, Ken and Flo (played by Jacobs' real parents). Settling into the claustrophobic yet oddly comforting environment of his childhood loft filled with gadgets, trinkets, paintings, and sculptures, he rummages through old letters, comic books, toys and the paraphernalia of his childhood, contacts an old high school girl friend to apologize for something the girl has completely forgotten about, visits a friend to watch old boxing videos, and takes up his guitar to sing a lame high-school song while mom and dad are trying to sleep.

Though mom and dad sense that something is wrong and ask him repeatedly what's going on, he tells them that he is fine, refusing to confront his demons. When pressed about his relationship, he makes up an affair for his wife as the reason he needs time away from her. Soon he is physically unable to leave the apartment and walk down the stairs to the street even though he fortifies himself with half a bottle of wine. Though his parents are caring, there is no truth telling and no sense of urgency. His mother offers him cereal with fruit and tells him that he can stay as long as he wants but seems unable to grasp the fact that he is sinking into a black hole.

Momma's Man is not just a film about pathology, however, but about universal human longing that has enough touches of humor that some have even called it a comedy. Whatever the genre you ascribe it to, it is a film of rare honesty and naturalness that hits us where it hurts. What makes it so unsettling is that Jacobs has reached a part of us that yearns to relive the warm comforts of childhood when all we had to do to feel self worth was to crawl into our mother's lap and close our eyes. Unlike Mikey, however, most of us can open our eyes, walk down the stairs and out the front door without looking back.

In order for me to enjoy a movie, I require things like character development, plot, a beginning, and an end. This movie contained none of these things. There was absolutely no way to empathize with the lead actor. I can't even call him a protagonist since there's no reason given for his inner conflict or a viable antagonist. My wife and I were left guessing throughout the film about the reason for this guy's sudden regression. With none given, not even a subtle hint, we're left to assume that this is just a jerk abandoning his family to act like a giant baby. I understand an independent filmmaker's desire to make a movie that asks more questions than it answers, and to portray realistic dialogue and human suffering, but at what point does it cease to be a subtle drama and become a confusing mess without character development? Must a writer/director fail as an entertainer in order to succeed as an artist? I think not. I say movies can be thrilling, funny, sad, frustrating, and totally engaging without sacrificing artistic merit. In the end, the writer of a movie is a storyteller, and it's lazy film making to think one can just throw a specific emotional state on screen and call it a movie. Don't waste your time.