2/4 Starring Alec Baldwin ‘amp; Cynthia Nixon Directed by Derick Martini Rated R
The portrayal of director Noah Baumbach as an insecure teen with a prick for a father was a strong selling point in ‘The Squid and the Whale.’ The marketers at Studio Media are crossing their creatively weary fingers you saw it ‘mdash; and presumably wouldn’t mind watching it again, thus taking a $10 chance on ‘Lymelife.’ But for your own sake, they also hope you won’t recall the much more honest directing, acting and storyline of ‘Whale.’
In Derick Martini’s underwhelming debut, the awkward growing pains of high school are molded, rather stiffly, into a square storyline. Growing up in the winter months of New York suburbs during the late ’70s, Scott Bartlett (an inbred Rory Culkin striving for the shy candor of a soft-spoken, 15-year-old runt) hasn’t fully realized the reality of his working-class household: Dad’s having an affair with his secretary, and Mom’s coping with overprotection issues and a penchant for pot.
But after his brother (real-life big bro Kieran Culkin) returns from a sojourn overseas, he is apparently less reluctant to challenge their overbearing father (the paunchy Alec Baldwin), and emotional conflict bubbles over, despite the fact that the film, as a whole, remains numbingly dull.
Mirroring Baumbach’s own experiences, ‘Lymelife’ tells a melodramatic story about spending adolescence trapped in a divided home ‘mdash; only with fewer complex characters, the same worn subplots (think ‘American Beauty’) and a tacked-on, sunny-eyed romance.
While Emma Roberts might not boast an impressive resume, she’s more entertaining as Adrianna Bragg than Bartlett, who ends up wallowing in timidity for most of the film. Lively and brazen (and practically transplanted from a Cameron Crowe film, sex appeal notwithstanding), she’s the only reason ‘Lymelife’ barely pulls off the romp of a romantic comedy while palming the melodrama of a cathartic coming-of-age.
If his actors had been more convincing, it would have been a good call on Martini’s part to rely so heavily on their feeble talent. But with Cynthia Nixon as the perennially plastic housewife (in shrill pitch) and Alec Baldwin the dour dad with a knack for delivering lines as monotone as Morse code, Martini’s crutch hurts his film more than it helps. Hard as Timothy Hutton tries in vain to redeem ‘Lymelife’ of its weaknesses, the script and acting are too rehearsed to earn our favor.