This was the film that I was most looking forward to seeing at the London Sundance Festival--it was also the biggest disappointment. Paul Dano is a clever actor who makes interesting choices, but he was so poorly miscast here that any glimmer of good acting was swallowed up by the fact that he simply was not the struggling rock singer, Joby Taylor.
Joby makes an overnight trip to some wintery north in order to battle his soon-to-be ex-wife for custody of their daughter, Ellen. Joby arrives to meet the lawyers wearing black nail polish, foppish hair and a gaudy leather coat. He can't be very old, maybe 26 or 27, but we understand he is far too old to be dressed the way he is, especially when contrasting him to his homely, but tasteful wife. An early question I had which never got resolved (though I am positive that there were many people in the audience thinking the same thing) was why they were together in the first place, how it ended and how long had they been separated? As the movie went on the timeline seemed to make less and less sense and I still feel unfulfilled with my knowledge.
Joby learns she is filing for divorce, trying to claim full custody of Ellen and to receive basically everything Joby owned. To make matters worse, Joby's band mate tells him he feels the band is going in two separate directions. He is on a downward spiral in this Nowhere and it sends him into a short-term depression. The film becomes a character study of a lonely and unsympathetic man who has never learned how to take responsibility for his life.
This in itself becomes problematic, as who wants to spend an hour and a half with somebody they don't like nor feel any obligation to care about his life? My interest began to drain almost immediately. It could have been stimulated, however, if writer/director So Yong Kim had followed her instincts which I felt she stifled. Joby's lawyer is Fred Butler (Jon Heder), a silly loser of a man who lives with his mother and can probably count the number of times he has had sex on two hands. Fred is taken up with the idea of the rock star in Joby. The two go to a bar for drinks and there is a brilliant exchange where Fred asks to bum a cigarette off Joby. When Joby offers him a light Fred declines, saying he just wanted to hold it. There seemed to be a homoerotic fascination coming from Fred and I think that had that been followed a bit it might have broken the monotony of the rest of the film.
It didn't, and the audience was left with a conventional plot where Joby is able to secure time with Ellen for a few hours. He learns that he knows nothing about little girls, and as always he pities himself. The forced would-be father dialogue was grueling and by the end I simply could not wait for the credits to role.
I'm not sure if this film could have been salvaged by another actor. I love Dano, but the thing about him is is that he is anything but unsympathetic. Nor is he a rocker. That baby face of his makes him just too likable which was frustrating. It was even more so because the director was also the writer. She had the concept of Joby in her head and Dano is who she felt filled the role best. If that is the case then the movie was flawed from the idea. After that, the handling of the material was too delicate and thought out. So much of it was sustained close-ups of Dano brooding about something or another and it just became tedious. I wanted him to sign the divorce papers and leave me and Ellen alone.
The one redemptive moment I can think of is the final scene which I found strangely cathartic. But it and Heder were not enough to raise this film to anything above substandard.
1.5/4
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