Imaginary Heroes

Wow. When I went to this film at the Toronto film festival I had no idea what I was in for. This movie takes you on an emotional roller-coaster in the best sense of the term. Sigourney Weaver was better than I've seen from her in years; Emile Hirsch was great and Jeff Daniels broke my heart. I can see how this won't be every person's cup of tea, as at times it deals with some pretty harsh things that can happen to a family. Don't get me wrong -- it's really funny too -- at my screening the audience burst out in applause after laughing over and over again. I just think if you're open to examining your own life, Imaginary Heroes will sincerely touch you. I can't wait until it comes out in theaters.

This film is chock-full of little surprises, many of them funny. The fact that it's written and directed by a 24-year old blows my mind. Some of the scenes where the high school kids are using ecstasy made me very uncomfortable because I have a kid that age and I could picture her using it. As parent of a teen, I found the depictions of the parent-child interactions to be dead-on accurate.

I enjoyed the film's many little jokes, and I enjoyed the fact that not everything made perfect sense and not all the issues were resolved by the end. To paraphrase Mark Twain, truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is required to stick to that which is possible, while truth is not.

This is a film which plays with the viewer, allowing us believe that people are what other people think they are, only to allow us later to realize that the folks we assumed were right were completely ignorant of the real situation. One of the film's strongest scenes, a scene about which we feel very relieved and sympathetic about what the character is doing, turns out to be based on a completely wrong assumption, and the character, while admirable, is totally wrong. It's very subtly done, I think. Very realistic.

I liked the score a lot -- I thought it really aided the film, really helped set the mood -- the film has a couple of screwball moments, and the background music helps establish that.

The valedictorian speech is a hoot and a half -- got a big laugh! The movie is really in my head right now -- saw it this morning. Will try to see it again, time allowing. Tens are hard to come by, but a solid nine in my book.

IMAGINARY HEROES (2004) **1/2 Sigourney Weaver, Emile Hirsch, Jeff Daniels, Michelle Williams, Kip Pardue, Deirdre O'Connell, Ryan Donowho, Suzanne Santo, Jay Paulson, Luke Robertson. (Dir : Dan Harris)

"Ordinary People" Meets "American Beauty" by way of "The Ice Storm"

Just what is it about the suburbs that have been portrayed as an American cousin to Norway's fjords in which nothing but despair, suicidal tendencies and infidelities run rampant at the corner of Angst and Anomie?

In the latest endeavor by Harris, a screenwriter who shared credit for the first "X-Men" film and several other comic book hero adaptations down the pike, makes his directorial debut questioning just that: Why does a family fall completely apart when a serious crisis occurs?

Well in the case of the Travis family it is the shocking, out-of-nowhere sudden horrific suicide by their eldest son Matt (Pardue), a star athlete with nothing but a bright, shiny future ahead who inexplicably offs himself sending his relatives into a whirlwind of emotions (and lack of to boot). Sharp tongued yet surprisingly loving mother Sandy (Weaver, the best thing about the film) resorts to smoking marijuana when she's not dodging the next door neighbor (O'Connell) ; ineffectual father Ben (Daniels in the trickiest performance – making an asshole likable) whose undying love for his dead son sends him into the deepest depths of depression and lashes out at his remaining brood; college age sister Penny (Williams) who attempts to anchor her grief in brief return visits only to party with blinders on and namely middle son Tim (Hirsch) who just is trying to move on with the whole affair and not dwelling on it as best he can yet still getting himself into a series of situations leading to a fall he may not be able to recover from.

The black comic pitch Harris attempts to filter into the various stages of grief are a mixed bag but often leave their marks of ridiculous moments of suburban oddness with a few brief elements of genuine loss and heartbreak. Leavened with a good dose of humor the film none-the-less is a listless addition to the quasi -genre of suburban angst films.

It is hard to judge 'Imaginary Heroes' without referring to the fact that director and script writer Dan Harris is only 25. You can hardly believe seeing this film, which is not only a mature piece of work, professional and deep, but also with some of the defects of routine specific to older directors.

The setting is the American suburb, too familiar from 'American Beauty' or 'Desperate Housewives'. As in 'American Beauty'the film turns around a suicide, but here it happens at the beginning of the movie, and we are left watching a mid-class family coping with the death of the gifted sportsman brother and son. Emile Hirsch plays the younger brother, Sigourney Weaver is the mother, both are excellent trying to cope with the loss, to find the reason and motivation to survive. Harris drives his actors with a sure hand, and the first two sections of the film (there are four in total, as the seasons of the year) build a wonderful tension, with credible dilemmas and real questions. It is the second part of the film that disappoints slightly, it looks too tired and conventional, and I suspect that the producers may have interfered in the work of the young script-writer and director, trying to bring him closer to the Hollywood convention. That's how this film fails to be a somber version of 'American Beauty', with a different focus. I am sure however that we will hear a lot about Dan Harris in the coming years.

This film does not have the outstanding visuals that American Beauty or The Ice Storm offered and because it was made after those films, it cannot be marked as very original either: the music, though subtly brilliant, sounds very much like that of American Beauty.

The story has some similarities with The Ice Storm in particular (besides Sigourney Weaver). Without intent perhaps, the film seems to try to recreate the success of the two aforementioned movies too much. At times, the story tends to stay a bit more shallow than it's bigger, more successful "brothers" by having too much going on, or by not delivering the most effective dialogs. Here, the writing cannot measure with that of American Beauty. But that can be said about most movies ever made, even the best and there is still a lot to like: said music score and (expectable, given the cast) effective performances. Of note is Emile Hirsch who would shine a couple of years later in the outstanding "Into The Wild".

Overall I can recommend this film if you like suburban dramas though it's not the first one on a list of must-sees, which would be topped by: 1 American beauty 2 The Ice Storm 3 Little Children.

After you've seen and liked those, check out this one.