About Alex

Alex (Jason Ritter) attempts to kill himself in his family home. His college friends gather to visit him. Ben (Nate Parker) and Siri (Maggie Grace) are married and facing difficult issues. Josh (Max Greenfield) is the malcontent who wants to confront Alex about his suicide attempt. Sarah (Aubrey Plaza) is tired of her job. Isaac (Max Minghella) brings his young girlfriend Kate (Jane Levy) who used to work for him.

This is basically a reworking of The Big Chill with some interesting actors from the new generation. I really don't want take away points for copying by new filmmaker Jesse Zwick. The biggest change is the lack of popular music. Nobody is dancing with their breakfast in this one. The best aspect is someone like Plaza stretching out a little. She shows that she can be a very compelling dramatic actress. This has some of my favorite actors around in a familiar movie setting.

I just saw this movie and I am really hoping that many people will go see it. While I found myself comparing it to the Big Chill in several spots, the characters do a good job at making it their own. The casting is incredible. I was fully immersed in the story, hoping for certain outcomes in the character's lives, feeling deeply for some, finding comedic relief in others. Being that the attempted suicide by one member of this group of friends is at the heart of this "reunion", I have to applaud Jesse Zwick for not only taking it on, but for also not shying away from showing the many layers of human emotion that surround it ... the misunderstandings, outrage, fear and blame, guilt, and above all love and forgiveness, and hopefully different choices that can be made as an outcome. Good job to the new director/screen writer. You had me at hello.

Five college friends and a plus one physically come together to watch a friend after he tries to commit suicide but in all other regards they spend the majority of the weekend egocentrically delving into their own unresolved self-generated baggage.

It is hard for a film, when it's basically a remake pretending not to be because this time the suicide victim isn't a victim but an attemptee but is hypocritically self-aware and gives homage to its predecessor, to do what it wants authentically without resembling a rip-off. And, fair warning, I have seen The Big Chill, and unintentionally watched it again a week before watching About Alex.

From the get-go you know to expect self-indulgent intellectualisms but About Alex is nothing but pretentious ramblings, giving it a loathsome hipsterly quality. The atmosphere of the entire movie is bordering on combative as they angrily banter through the tension. Maybe this was a deliberate decision from writer/director Jesse Zwick; to put a mirror to the disjointed self absorbed nature of the generation and act as a representation and critique of the Facebook age. One would think that people coming together to help another through the days immediately following a suicide attempt would be kind and loving but for the most of the movie you forget they were even friends. The acting is good and roles fully formed, of which Jane Levy and Max Greenfield are most successful, but they can not save their faulted characters.

The directing and composition of shots was uninspired, average, and literal. There is an art to telling a story without having it plainly done with the characters' dialogue and that is completely missing from About Alex. This is evident from the very beginning when Zwick decides to waste five minutes showing: the suicide attempt, everyone getting the call about the suicide attempt and making their arrangements to go and deal with the suicide attempt. Instead he could have saved five minutes, had everyone somberly encounter one another, leaving the dialogue as-is where the true subject for being together is implied and pussyfooted around and then cut to the one friend left at the cabin as he tries to clean the bloodstained bathtub. All conversations between two characters are over the shoulder framed close-ups that cut back and forth as they talk to one another.

I wanted to like this movie, the trailer had me so hopeful and the cast is sublime but About Alex is masturbatory and decidedly not The Big Chill of our generation.

Check out our website for more movie and television reviews!

As other reviewers have mentioned, the obvious, this is such an homage to The Big Chill that it's basically a remake. And it is SO well done! The casting is perfect, the dialogue is every bit as snappy and sharp as the original. The updates for millennials are pitch perfect. Characters complaining about our current obsession with documenting every moment instead of LIVING every moment. Our habit of referencing movies and tv shows to explain experiences and feelings...instead of actually experiencing them and describing them with...words. The writer, a Jesse Zwick, has nailed the failures, idiosyncrasies and benefits of our digital age without ever coming across as preachy or self indulgent. He observes his characters (He observes all of US) without judgement. His touch is just light enough to avoid cheesy sentimentality. Imagine handling an attempted suicide with such skill and wit. He takes us along as he imagines what might have happened if Alex, played by Kevin Costner's wrists in the original, had lived. He fleshes out the awkwardness, guilt, anger, relief that Alex's friends might have felt in the days immediately following the suicide attempt . This script could have gone so wrong. It went so right. This was Jesse Zwick's first produced script and his directorial debut. Attention must be paid. I can't wait to see what else this guy has up his sleeve.

I have no complaints! I am thrilled that the director chose to not make a wall to wall "greatest hits of THAT moment" soundtrack. It would have been so easy to do and would have hit us all squarely in the feels, but choosing to keep the sound spare was a braver move. He let the writing stand on its own, and it works!

The Big Chill came out when I was in high school. I am NOT a millennial, yet I did relate to many of the issues raised in the film. My friends and I went to see the film several times in the theater and then bought the damned soundtrack. I remember us cruising around our small town blasting that soundtrack from the crappy stereo system in our equally crappy cars. Freedom! One might expect that someone with such deep seated, sweet memories of the original might hate this remake/homage. They would be wrong. I loved it.

That small town was in New Jersey. My memories and love of the state are just as strong as Bruce Springsteen's, though I moved away years ago. But as Josh says in one of his many quotable lines, "Never trust anyone who is that passionate about the state of New Jersey." He's not wrong; I'm an unrepentant Jersey Girl and I expect my affection for this movie will be as lasting (and irrational) as my love for my home state.

Give this movie a chance. If you loved the Big Chill, you will love this too.

It hits all the right issues about modern isolation and the nature of friendship, but it hits on them only tangentially and without any depth. And it doesn't really use its theme to its advantage very well. If there's one very positive thing I can say about this movie it's that once a scene gets going it starts to really get going. And then the scene ends way too soon and we're left with a sense of incompleteness. It's as if the director didn't want the players to do too much "acting" to get in the way.

The set-up is weakly explained, the relationship dynamics are barely believable, and the resolution is too neatly tied up. But if you like some of the actors, it will be a pleasant if not terribly worthwhile experience. Overall, it was a missed opportunity to explore how technological progress has affected how we make and sustain friendships in a post-Big Chill world.