Review: "Landline"

Actress Jenny Slater reteams with her “Obvious Child” director/screenwriter, Gillian Robespierre, for another comedically observational look at the trials of young womanhood.

“Landline” follows a twentysomething woman played by Slater toeing the precipice of marriage and concurrent anxiety about permanency, as well as her teenage sister caught in the phase of acting out and seeking all around her for meaning, and finding only disappointment in her immediate surroundings.

It's a smart, tender, wry and sensitive portrait of a family in turmoil. Edie Falco and John Turturro play the parents, harried in their own lives and bewildered by the two independent-minded women they’ve raised. They have their own problems as well, which Robespierre explores with co-screenwriter Elisabeth Holm, who also worked on the story for “Child.”

Set in 1995, the title refers to the numerous telephone conversations in the movie, before mobile phones were ubiquitous. Most of the impact interactions take place face-to-face, however, and “Landline” also speaks to the deeper connection the sisters form throughout the course of the story when circumstances throw them into unexpected proximity.

Slate plays Dana, who superficially seems pretty stable with a decent starter job, apartment and fiancé, Ben (Jay Duplass). They get on well together, but even before the wedding vows take place a sense of sameness has crept into the relationship. The sex has even gone stale, which they attempt to solve with an unfortunate change of locale. But Dana discovers deeper cravings she’s afraid will get stifled.

This leads to a flirtation with college flame Nate (Finn Wittrock), whose crooked smile and off-kilter regard for things like marriage and family personify Dana’s increasingly chilly feet.

Abby Quinn plays Ali, who’s about 16 but seems to have skipped over the teen angst phase and hurried straight into menopausal orneriness. Her dad, Alan (Turturro), jokes that maybe getting mugged will tame her nighttime wanderings, but then takes it back: muggers would be too scared of her.

Ali is in a hurry: to grow up, to drink and do drugs, to lose her virginity, to go to college or whatever else it takes to get away from her parents as soon as possible. She has a guy she keeps around (Marquis Rodriguez) to help with her carnal explorations, but Ali treats him as an appliance to her own evolution.

One of the more interesting things about “Landline” is the way the women tend to use men poorly, rather than the other way around. Early on the girls discover love poetry written by their dad, an advertising copywriter and wannabe playwright, to a mysterious woman named “C.” They spend much of the movie trying to sniff out who that is -- not quite believing such a self-doubting person would have the gumption to cheat.

They nurse their secret resent for their dad, even as Dana carries out the exact same sort of duplicity, and Ali casually squashes her would-be boyfriend’s feelings when they intrude up on her plans.

Falco is the center of the clan as matriarch Pat, who has a very public position of power and employs a slightly softer version of that on the home front. In one scene she dismisses her husband as a “failure” in front of their daughter, and Turturro’s face is a mask of restrained pain. Pat’s not a bad person, but she’s been shouldering the parenting load for so long, she can’t help resent her floundering mate.

Things go on, with much pain as well as laughter. The appeal of “Landline” is its spot-on observation of characters who resemble real people rather than Hollywood constructs conveying themselves from Point A to B in the plot. These people knock around, sidestepping and backtracking, in a chaotic path that bends (hopefully) toward grace.

Review: "Table 19"

Screenwriters Jay and Mark Duplass more or less established the mumblecore genre, known for its rambling, naturalistic dialogue punctuated with sly jokes. "Table 19" is familiar territory, but also not. It's got more emotional resonance than we're used to seeing from these movies, though plenty of laughs, too.

Anna Kendrick is first-among-equals as Eloise, one of six guests at the titular table of losers at the wedding of her oldest friend. El was actually the bridesmaid and helped plan the wedding, so her voice has authority when she tells the other guests how each table was organized: the grandparents, the cousins, eligible singles, shaky singles, the kids' table, etc.

The literal last, table 19, consists of people who should've known to check "declines with regrets" rather than attend, El says. They're the back of the room, shunted off and forgotten. El herself has self-demoted because she used to date Teddy (Wyatt Russell), the bride's brother and also the best man. They just broke up a couple of months ago, and it's obvious to all that El has come because she's looking to have it out with him.

It's essentially one long freewheeling conversation, that starts out with the table-mates denying that they've been assigned to the worst table, then sussing out why they got disrespected, and finally moving on to more substantial exploration.

I'm not giving anything away by revealing that halfway through the movie, they decamp en masse. More than anything it reminded me of "The Breakfast Club," where hijinks give way to somber, probing moments.

It's definitely a motley crew. Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson are Bina and Jerry Kepp, a long-married couple who own a diner in Columbus, Ohio. Either the bride or groom's family (I forget) is also in the business, so the invitation seems like more a courtesy than a call to come. She wanted to attend, he didn't, so it's already tense between them. Their marriage has reached the point where they're more snarky best friends than lovers.

One of the things they like to do is argue a bit, then flip each other off simultaneously after turning their backs. When that's your "cute thing," you know you're in trouble.

Tony Revolori plays Renzo, a nervous high school kid here to represent his family, which also has business ties. Renzo is a desperate virgin who's hoping a wedding is a great way to change that. Interestingly, his (heard-not-seen) mother is actually the one pushing him to do this. She tells him his manhood -- not the concept; his actual parts -- is a gift from God, and the wedding holds better odds for him scoring than the junior prom, which is the same weekend.

Like all teens Renzo is fervently annoyed by his mother, without realizing she's actually the best mom in the world.

Stephen Merchant is Walter, cousin to the bride. Very tall and very shy, Walter likes to disappear into the background drapes and avoid conversations. You'll find out why. 

One running gag is about Bina's maroon coat, which matches those of the servers at the wedding. Bina is continually annoyed when they mistake her for one of them, so she gives it to Walter. It tells you everything you need to know about him that when a worker instructs him to go bring drinks to table or whatnot, Walter doesn't object but tranquilly shambles off to comply.

Nanny Jo (June Squibb) -- everyone calls her that, even though she's retired -- was the first caretaker to the bride's family. Jo is operating under the delusion that she's a beloved figure invited to watch her former charges become full-fledged adults, but really they hardly remember her. She's plucky, plainspoken and has that strange sort of maternal strength that some childless women gain over the years.

Where things go, I won't tell you, though you can probably guess. El and Teddy have their face-off, and we learn more about them that we'd guess. Kendrick's a master at showing us normal women with strains of grace and neuroticism they struggle to conceal. I also really liked Russell, who acts like a cad but maybe has reason to. He was also a soulful presence in the great, virtually unseen "Everybody Wants Some!!".

There's a fun departure with a dreamy fellow played by Thomas Cocquere, who sidles up to El at the start of the wedding and starts tossing off witticisms and flirtations. She later enlists him for a scorching dance together to make Teddy jealous. We think we know where this is going, though maybe that his name is Huck provides a cautionary note. 

As multiple people point out, no one is named Huck anymore.

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz, whose background is mostly in television, "Table 19" is a fun and smart little film celebrating the screw-ups and the outcasts. The thing is, everybody screws up and everybody gets cast out, at least at some point in their life, though some of us maybe more than others. 

Review: "Cyrus"

I don't really know what to call "Cyrus." From the presence of Jonah Hill as the title character, most people will probably take it as a comedy. But the humor is so dark and the mood so frequently unnerving that you don't much feel like laughing.

What I did feel was fully engaged, and enjoyment at drinking in some wonderful performances by Hill, Marisa Tomei and especially John C. Reilly. It's a movie that's not trying to provoke a reaction from the audience, but simply observes a small set of characters with sharp focus and a wry wit.

Reilly plays John, a sad sack who's finally pulled out of the tailspin since his divorce by starting a relationship with Molly (Tomei), a single mother to 21-year-old Cyrus (Hill), who's still living at home and doesn't show any inclinations about changing this fact. Cyrus sabotages their relationship, subtly at first but with increasing venom.

One scene sums up my reaction to this film. John has begun sleeping over at Molly's, which Cyrus accepts with a veneer of friendliness but clearly doesn't like. In the middle of the night, John gets up to find Cyrus standing in the kitchen nude from the waist down and holding a butcher knife. "C'mere," he says with a glazed stare, motioning with the huge knife.

I'll save you the trouble by letting you know "Cyrus" does not veer into slasher flick territory. But the sensation one gets in that moment -- nervous laughter that morphs quickly into fear and then melts into a profound discomfort -- is strangely enjoyable.

"Cyrus" is written and directed by sibling duo Jay and Mark Duplass ("Baghead"), part of the "mumblecore" indie movement. The dialogue has an ungroomed, improvisational feel, and the trio of stars give naturalistic performances without an ounce of ego.

Reilly, who's done a lot of lunkhead comedies lately but has shown serious acting chops in the past, certainly doesn't seem to have any vanity in his role. When we first see John, his ex-wife (Catherine Kenner) catches him masturbating in his slovenly wreck of a home.

She reveals that she and her boyfriend (Matt Walsh) are going to get married, which crushes him despite the seven years since they parted. To cheer him up, they invite John to a party where he gets stupendously drunk, and even the homely girl sitting alone on the couch blows him off.

Molly, however, overhears his moment of total vulnerability and is touched. Soon they're an item, but John quickly senses something wrong about her relationship with her son. Cyrus calls her Molly instead of mother, and they spend hours every day together wrapped in a cocoon of co-dependency.

Cyrus deeply resents any division of Molly's affections with another -- she tellingly reveals she hasn't had a serious relationship since Cyrus was born -- and sets about to use himself as a wedge between them.

In essence, John has walked into the middle of an Oedipal complex, with him taking on the role of the guy about to get whacked.

Hill is terrific, and what's most striking about it is that it isn't all that different from what he does in his comedic roles. He's become a master of the deadpan stare where he says seemingly benevolent things, but in a cutting way. His Cyrus is a sweet-faced emotional terrorist.

I really liked Reilly in this. He starts out as such a pathetic figure, we practically cringe for him. But he slowly gets his baggage together, and has enough self-respect to fight back against Cyrus' manipulations.

Tomei's role is a bit under-realized -- Molly acts as a vessel into which these two flawed men pour their emotions, good and bad. I kept wishing she would take a proactive role, and kick both of them out.

3 stars out of four