Igby

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

Ten out of ten. One of the greats, with memorable characters you'll think about for days. This great film got caught in MGM/UA distribution purgatory. If it could have busted out of the indy circuit from day one and gotten into general release, it would have been favorably compared with "The Graduate" and Kieran Culkin's performance with Dustin Hoffman's debut performance in that Mike Nichol's classic. MGM/UA blew it.

Culkin is a great young player with a look and resources evoking both Hoffman and Robert Downey. He's naturalistic and great to watch. Smart, funny, urbane writing by first time director Steers is never "on the nose". Yet underneath the evasive, sarcastic stripped down dialogue he pulls hard hitting emotions from his ensemble. Not a false or wasted scene and more than a few really powerful ones. Every player is at the top of their game, from Kieran Culkin to Amanda Peet, Jeff Goldblum to Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman to Claire Danes to Ryan Phillippe. They're obviously guided by a director who knows how to work with an ensemble to get an overall tone.

Igby is the anti Ferris Beuhler - a smart wanna be who's wise mouth and attitude usually piss off those around him - his mother, his brother, his godfather. Torn between those who don't get him and those who do (Peet, Danes), Igby paints all his relationships with the same sarcastic brush, his vulnerability only busting out when he's pushed to the limit. Culkin's perfomance is not to be missed. The key women, Sarandon, Peet and Danes all play fully formed characters. Goldblum is perfect for his role, his usual facile acting style well suited to the South Hampton prince he plays; his best turn in years.

Seers has style and flow, and his final cut is aided by the excellent music choices he and his music supervisor, Nick Harcourt arrived at. Cameron Crowe couldn't do better. The Igby soundtrack is tres alt moderne and every cut is great.

Warning: Actors are blocked (brilliantly) for wide screen format. So this film will suffer from TV / video screen ratios as the Graduate does. Either go see it in the theater NOW or wait for letterbox!

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!

I'm very pleased to see other reviewers comparing Kieran Culkin's character Jason/Igby to The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield - while watching the film I was thinking the same thing, much to writer/director Burr Steers' credit. This is THE Social Commentary movie I have been waiting to see for a long time now - fearless, witty, arch, poignant without being sentimental, and, best of all, the characters are not one-dimensional, they all live and breathe and we feel the agony they are suffering behind their socially privileged masks.

Culkin is especially brilliant (and so sad, with his Harry Potter scarf - a young wizard without any magic), but everyone shines here - Sarandon, Pullman, Danes, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff "how-can-I-be-any-creepier" Goldblum, and of course Jared Harris, who positively reeks eccentricity without even having to open his mouth (but when he does, it's always good too). A fine first film from a director/writer who definitely bears watching.