Posted: 09/15/02
© 2002 Filmmonthly.com

Igby Goes Down (2002)
by Hank Yuloff

Adolescent goes on the lam, learns that freedom has its price...

Kieran Culkin (She's All That, The Cider House Rules) plays the title character who defines the expression "he has issues." Issues with another who prefers his brother. Issues with the brother who won't let him forget it. Issues with a dad who resides at "The Maryland Home for the Befuddled." Issues with his married godfather who Igby finds with his pants around his ankles in the home of a mistress. Issues with an educational system that doesn't understand why he can't concentrate on schoolwork with all these other issues in place. No wonder he wants to run away to California.

The story was written and directed by first time director Burr Steers. Bravo. Excellent dialog. The pacing is wonderful. A story is told with a beginning, middle, and an end (take notes David Lynch).

The cast takes this story and brings it completely to life. Susan Sarandon (Rocky Horror Picture Show, Bull Durham, Thelma & Louise) is Mimi Slocumb, the socialite mom who has raised one good kid (Ryan Philliippe from Cruel Intentions, Gosford Park, The Way of the Gun) and one Igby. He never seems to understand how the things he does reflect on HER! Jeff Goldblum (Independence Day, Silverado) is Igby's godfather (and more???) having an affair with an artist that his wife is either too whacked out on valium to see or she's just turning a blind eye to it so she doesn't have to sleep with him anymore. Amanda Peete (Saving Silverman, Whole 9 Yards) is the nymphomaniac drug addict artist who has decided that taking Goldblum as her "patron" is good for her art... and she sleeps with him for the sake of her art. Phillippe plays Igby's brother Oliver. What a twisted, sadistic guy we have here. He is "the good one," damn it, and to prove it to the adults, he's going to do everything he can to show it...while being an a-hole to his brother. Oliver's character seems to exist in this film mostly as a messenger between all of the different parties.

In a cast of stand out performances, Claire Danes (Brokedown Palace, The Rain Maker) is the one that shone most brightly. She is Sookie Sapperstein, a college student who becomes Igby's girlfriend while taking a semester off of school to "recover." From what? Mostly, it seems, the pressure of being her. She is alluring and she is frustrating. I was all about being into her character when she went and slept with someone she was NOT supposed to. Not that it hit close to home, or reminded me about any of MY ex-girlfriends (no names, but KG comes to mind) or anything, but I was disappointed when she later she laughingly asks Igby if he hates her and all he can muster is that he did for about a month, but now she isn't even in the top 5. I knew what was coming next. Like all good jilted lovers, he asks to sleep with her one last time. Men, we are pathetic.

The urge here is to demonstrate how good the film is by sharing many of the wonderful lines that Steers wrote. But to pimp the movie is to ruin it, so I will just pass on a recommendation. For the absurdity of it all. For the acting. And for the pleasure that all this dysfunction hasn't happened to you.

Hank Yuloff is an advertising guy who also has issues. Why else would he own an advertising company?