Touchy Feely

'Touchy Feely' is yet another Indie film which depicts the ho-hum dilemmas and repressed behavior of middle-class American families. The opening act is set at an awkward dinner, where it's revealed that a dentist single father is obstructing his daughter's artistic potential by employing her as an assistant, while his sister works as a massage therapist, and hesitates over moving in with an unambitious boyfriend.

Their issues soon materialize in bizarre ways - the dentist discovers his touch can miraculously cure long-standing dental ailments, while the massage therapist suddenly finds herself repulsed by human skin. The fine cast does their best with the material, but this lightweight fable makes little sense as pivotal plot-lines are swept under the carpet, or else forgotten by the screenwriter. By the time everybody gathers for a second dinner, most of the family problems have magically evaporated thanks to the glib ministrations of a Reiki therapist, an ex-lover's apology, the songs of an Asian folk singer and a couple of tabs of ecstasy.

I'm really surprised at the bad reviews and that I've never heard of this movie. I loved how real the characters were... I don't know, it's like you could feel the ache it felt to be alive. They were all so real in their own quirky ways.

And I could not get enough of of Josh Pais and his flat affect self. He was so tortured it was enduring somehow. So real and so raw. All the characters beautifully portrayed. I loved this movie... I never really leave reviews. But I felt I had to counter some of these bad reviews. If you're on the fence regarding watching this - watch it - you won't be sorry.

...For a useless little effort of a movie.

If the writers and producers create a film with one completly strange and mysterious plot device and then proceed to offer no explanation of it whatsoever, I write them off immediately.

Such is the case with this movie. Absolutely no effort is put into explaining the dentist's strange healing powers.

This is artistically lazy and uncreative. It's supposed to render the film with a more important human element and deeper meaning. But that's an artistic ploy- like the old, cheesy sci fi films that featured an impossibly weird monster, but never explained how in the world the monster came into being. Or even why said monster is now living in the middle of NYC.

Lazy. Like my review. Ignore both.

I wanted to love this movie, it feels exactly like the type of movie in which that would happen. It started off so strongly and I was convinced that it would be one of my favorite films of the year. And then it just kind of died. The actors were all great and it is hard for me not to love anything Allison Janney is involved with. I just can't quite put my finger on what happened here.

Rosemarie DeWitt is a masseuse who is suddenly turned off by skin and physical contact and this creates a barrier with her job as well as her boyfriend. Josh Pais is her brother, a dentist who borders on being seemingly autistic and really has no joy or connection with anyone in the world, including his daughter (Ellen Page) who feels trapped working with her father at his office. Pais goes to see Allison Janney (a masseuse working with DeWitt) and is inspired to have connections of his own, but we never really see it come to fruition in any meaningful way that makes any sense. Which is how I felt about most of the situations in the film.

The parts with the father coming to Allison Janney for the first time and the great interaction and natural acting of the family all getting together for that first dinner were perfect. But then everything just kind of flattens out and people get worse and try various things to get better and some of it works and some is sort of unresolved and we never quite go beyond that.

I was quite surprised to find that this film was under 90 minutes because when it was nearly over, I found myself wondering just when it was going to end because it felt so long. There are voice-over and music montages where we see what the various characters are going through that just feel like they are twice as long as they should be. And those are the types of scenes I typically love so I really wish they had landed in this film. I think if I had cared more about the characters and they weren't just odd caricatures as the film went on, it would have maybe had more impact. The acting was all really great though and I loved the cast. They did well with what felt like half-baked characters and certainly elevated the film in that regard.

Things resolve themselves for the characters without any real feeling of why but I didn't depart with any real personal resolution from the audience standpoint.

Lynn Shelton's sophomore film Your Sister's Sister was a terrific little independent gem, showcasing relationships involving siblings and the complexities that surround quiet but notable flings we may neglect to mention to our friends. With a talented cast of three (Rosemarie DeWitt, Emily Blunt, and the wonderful Mark Duplass) it was a favorable experience to say the least. Shelton returns a year later with Touchy Feely which, to say the least, is a disappointing effort after batting a triple in 2012.

Your Sister's Sister worked because it was predicated off of human interest and realism in its events and dialog. Shelton asserted herself in human dialog, and immersed herself in the breathtaking beauty of Seattle's woodsy environment, making the film easy-on-the-eyes and very effective. Here, she makes Touchy Feely exist in what appears to be a fantasy realm, where real-life situations occupy a plot-point of science-fiction that's not only a bit offputting but difficult to adjust to. When the film introduces these plot-points, it only becomes that much harder to stay in-tuned with it, which is an issue seeing as that's the film's central plot.

Rosemarie DeWitt is Abby, a skilled masseuse who, all of a sudden, becomes frightened by the touch/texture of human flesh. This is a major issue because it renders her job impossible. Her brother Paul (Josh Pais) works as a dentist, with his directionless daughter Jenny (Ellen Page). When Jenny impulsively states that Paul has a "healing touch" when it comes to his dental work, the fib becomes true as Paul's work begins to heal many of his customers and their dental issues.

So, while Abby's job begins to crumble before her eyes due to her newfound aversion to human skin, Paul's dentistry practices begin to flourish and the possibilities become endless on his part. We, as the audience, are simply asked to observe this happening and this is precisely the issue; the film is void of connection and moments where true sympathy could've been evoked. We learn nothing about these characters except some of their situations are sad, some make us envious, but in the end, all of them are pretty trite and forgettable.

Touchy Feely's issue comes from two things; one, it feels more gridlocked to a story, where Your Sister's Sister was breezy and flowed in the wind, thanks to improvisational dialog. The other is that it tries to humanize something inhuman, which are relationships. It tries to make them the point of focus in the film and forgets we need to see the characters involved in the relationship to make them work.

At the end of the film - which runs a rather short eighty-three minutes - I thought about Lynn Shelton and how Your Sister's Sister struck me with so much surprise and how little excitement this effort packed. I simply console and toy with the idea that she is young, smart, and clearly passionate about not only her home-state of Seattle but film as an artistic medium. I say what I do after watching a mediocre Woody Allen movie; "they'll make more."

Starring: Rosemarie DeWitt, John Pais, Ellen Page, Scoot McNairy, Allison Janney, and Ron Livingston. Directed by: Lynn Shelton.