Dummy

I had a premonition I was about to see a comedy with a lot of heart even before the main titles played out at a screening of "Dummy" at the American Film Market 2000 recently.

In the opening scene, Steven, who lives with his eccentric parents and sister, sits enthralled watching the flickering tv image of ventriloquist Edgar Bergan and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy. As the camera moves in on the young man, we see in his eyes the depth of his dreams and aspirations to at last make something of his humdrum life. The next day, he gives up his 9-to-5 job and announces to his dysfunctional family that he wants to be a ventriloquist. His ever-busy mother(Jessica Walter), making yet another tuna sandwich, remarks that his career choice is" nice but not very realistic" while his sister observes that with the dummy on his lap, Steven looks like a child molester.

Casting is right on the mark. Adrien Brody brings a sympathetic and likable quality to the role of Steven as he manipulates his dummy to express his own private fears and feelings to the people around him. Vera Farmiga, the love interest, is extremely engaging as his employment counselor and Illeana Douglas, the very unmarried sister, is constantly funny. Outstanding too is Milla Javovich as Steven's best friend, a punk rocker with layers of attitude. Writer and director Greg Pritikin skillfully holds down the pathos and gives his film just the right touch of humor. An entertaining movie that is worth a look.

Dummy (2002)

A fun, offbeat, somewhat frivolous charcoal gray comedy. It's hilarious in spots and touching in spots, and has some terrific acting. The overall scenario is a situation comedy, drawn out over the hour and a half, and it might have made a tighter hour long television show. At times it seems to really hit an eccentric tone that's terrific and even a little surreal, as with some of the family interactions, played with beautiful deadpan steadiness. And when it's a moving romantic comedy, you appreciate the restrained, sympathetic acting of several of the leads. There isn't a bad performance in the lot of them.

Adrien Brody , Milla Jovovich, and Illeana Douglas are all hilarious in this great little comedy... Beautiful Milla shows her unique talent for being simultaneously really sexy and really funny, as she did 5 yrs earlier, in "The Fifth Element"... What I like most is that the humour is mainly subtle. The funniest bits are more understated than they are in the bigger-budget comedies with the in-your-face – appeal to the broadest possible audience stuff... "Dummy" is a fine example of not compromising, in order to harvest the biggest-possible box-office receipts. I give this side-splitting indie 8 big-ones and whole-heartedly recommend it.

This movie is terrific. It's very funny and very powerful. Everything that happens is a necessary plot point to tell the story. Nothing is extraneous. Each character is uniquely entertaining and real, they each remind us of someone we know. We root for Stephen, we dislike Heidi, and we can't help but love Fanny. The characters are developed wonderfully. The performances are all terrific. I've never seen any of Adrien Brody's work before, but if it's all as great as this then he's destined for super stardom. Illeana Douglas is hilarious and perfect as usual. I was most blown away by Milla Jovovich. She's amazingly fun to watch on screen and her New Jersey accent is dead-on. Great dialog and flawless directing. Simply put it's a wonderful film with a unique theme, which is unique in itself.

Adrien Brody is quietly wonderful as an unemployed nebbish in his late twenties who stills lives with his parents and has a fascination with ventriloquism; he finally buys a dummy of his own and practices the craft he's dreamed about, yet also realizes (via his new wooden companion) that it may be time to start growing up. Greg Pritikin wrote and directed this low-budget satire of suburban craziness, and seems to harbor an affection for bughouse characters all living on the edge. It isn't an original vision (Hal Hartley was mining this dryly eccentric territory 10 years ago), but it's still surprising how successfully Pritikin manages to pull this intentionally bumpy story together. Milla Jovovich is initially off-putting playing Brody's friend, a foul-mouthed garage rocker, but when she gets her band a job playing klesmer songs at a wedding--and immerses herself in the Jewish language--she reveals an appealing, sassy side that totally fits into Pritikin's offbeat universe. Illeana Douglas and Vera Farmiga are also very fine, and though the construction of the script is caricature-oriented, most of these actors overcome the slight material, revealing something unexpected in the process: a sunny story about weirdos that ultimately celebrates humanity. **1/2 from ****