Ray Pride

Writer-director Burr Steers demonstrates a savage verbal wit in this jaw-droppingly mean Salingeresque black comedy of Swiftian bad manners among uppercrust Georgetown and Manhattan. Kieran Culkin is a star. Culkin plays Igby Slocumb, a sarcastic 17-year-old who hates the old money world he was born into, especially his distant, selfish mother, played with spite by Susan Sarandon, who notes "His creation was an act of animosity, why should his life not be?" Happy to flunk out of yet another school, Igby goes on the lam, hiding out at godfather Jeff Goldblum's Manhattan loft, which he keeps for smoke-blowing mistress Amanda Peet. Steers understands wicked dysfunction, as well as emblematic behavior, such as having Goldblum goofy-grinning, literally caught with his pants around his ankles, and Peet watched by a boy and a boy-man as, bare-chested, she shaves her underarms. Then there's Clare Danes' pissy turn as older-woman Sookie "I am not a JAP" Saperstein, who provides Igby with drugs, sex and attitude. She calls him "Pavlov's pothead." Culkin seethes with conflict and confusion, and best of all, Steers does not bother to illuminate hilariously arcane references, or flinch from the word "Bitch!" being answered by "Cunt-face!" He's utterly unsentimental about any number of ticklish issues, including assisted suicide. Nor does he apologize for a character taunting Igby from hiding with the chant, "Anne Frank, Anne Frank, the soldiers are gone, come out and play." While reminiscent of "Where's Poppa" and other sad, sorrowful black comedies, "Igby" is a clear-eyed original. "You're a furious boy," Sookie tells him after taking up with "fascist" older bro Ryan Phillippe, "and someday you won't be a boy anymore and it will eat you alive." For the moment, Igby lives. Nice song score, too, collated by Nic Harcourt. Widescreen. 110m.

"Igby Goes Down" opens Friday at Pipers Alley.

(2002-09-18)

Also by Ray Pride

TIP OF THE WEEK
So yeah, lesser-light word wranglers have envied the easy luster of New Yorker critic Anthony Lane's prose since 1993.
(2002-09-11)

Tip of the Week
Set on the South Side of Chicago, Tim Story's directorial debut is a good-natured, riff-heavy workplace comedy, playing on familiar African-American comic types, scoring best with Cedric the Entertainer's turn as the memorably mush-mouthed voice of impolitic experience.
(2002-09-11)

Tip of the Week
Vérité, I say unto you. Bryan Kortis and Steven Mudrick's "WTC Uncut," an important historical document, is an unblinking video image of the World Trade Center that runs from moments after the second strike and ends soon after the second collapse.
(2002-09-04)

Sex education
Benoît Jacquot packs his serene work with the game of attraction, the tangible qualities of seduction, the sheen of bared skin, the gift of sight. Yet the modesty of "Sade," his latest film, worked against him, as did the existence of a larger-budgeted, more literal-minded film with the Marquis at its center, Philip Kaufman's "Quills."
(2002-08-28)

Tip of the Week
(2002-08-21)

Hit or myth
(2002-08-21)

Reverse zoom
(2002-08-21)

Tip of the Week
(2002-08-14)

Victorian Secret
(2002-08-14)

EVERYMAN OF ACTION
(2002-08-07)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-08-07)

OFF CAMERA
(2002-08-07)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment