Igby Goes Down
(2002)
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Seventeen-year-old Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) comes from a wealthy but dysfunctional family. His mother (Susan Sarandon) is a pill-popping lunatic, his brother (Ryan Phillipe) is a collegiate, money-obsessed snob, and his father (Bill Pullman) is a hospitalized schizophrenic. After Igby is expelled from boarding school, his mother sends him to a military academy where he is brutalized by the other kids. He escapes to the Hamptons, where he meets Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), an enigmatic and artistic vegetarian on a break from Bennington College. Igby then goes to New York, where he holes up in the loft of the heroin-addicted mistress (Amanda Peet) of his reptilian godfather D.H. (Jeff Goldblum). He once again runs into Sookie, and the two begin an affair, which eventually falls apart as Igby realizes that he has never had anyone to trust, and he decides to try and change his life for the better. |
Writer/director Burr Steers's bittersweet comedy takes the first of many strange turns in an uncomfortable opening sequence: the asphyxiation of Susan Sarandon by sons Kieran Culkin and Ryan Philippe. Dark moments such as these permeate this offbeat coming-of-age tale, with acid-tongued Culkin often outshining his more experienced co-stars. It may take a while to tune in to the script's coldness of heart and the savage cynicism bursting from alienated teen protagonist “Igby” (a childhood nickname), who runs away from military school to hang out in New York. Yet, despite a contemptuous attitude towards familial relationships and romance, the film elicits sympathy via flashbacks to his unhappy childhood (featuring Culkin's brother Rory as his younger incarnation). Steer's amusing, barbed dialogue is another prime asset, adding bite to fine supporting turns from Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum and Amanda Peet.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Intermittently amusing, dark-toned comedy of teenage angst and adult betrayals, let down by its self-satisifed air.