THUMBSUCKER
****
CAST:
Lou Pucci, Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio,
Vince Vaughn, Keanu Reeves, Benjamin Bratt, Kelli Garner, Chase
Offerle
WRITER/DIRECTOR:
Mike Mills
 Shame
on Justin Cobb! He’s 17 and refuses to stop sucking his thumb.
His dad, a small-town businessman and former athlete still pouting
about a knee injury that benched his dream of becoming a football
hero, is disgusted by his son’s thumbsucking and thinks the
ninny should just quit doing it. Period.
His mom, a flaky nurse, is more tolerant
of Justin’s bad habit. In fact, she barely notices it, possibly
because she’s so busy searching for something or somebody
to relieve the monotony of her marriage to the faded jock. Specifically,
she daydreams about hooking up with Matt Schramm, a sexy TV star
she finds irresistible.
As for Joel Cobb, Justin’s kid brother, he thinks the whole
family sucks.
It seems unlikely that a coherent, meaningful movie could be shaped
from such whacky material. Yet, as it turns out, this adaptation
of Walter Kirn’s widely praised novel is a wittily perceptive,
laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly tender triumph. In his debut
feature, writer-director Mike Mills strikes a remarkable balance
between the outrageous and subtle elements of the dysfunctional-family
comedy-drama, drawing top performances from an extraordinary ensemble.
Lou Pucci--as the skinny, long-haired, occasionally obnoxious but
basically lovable Justin--proves that the jurors at the Berlin Film
Festival who voted him Best Actor of 2005 knew what they were doing.
The young man’s a wonder, and so are Tilda Swinton, Vincent
D’Onofrio and little Chase Offerle as the other members of
the Cobb clan.
The performers who may astonish you most, however, are a few who
are not especially well known for giving astonishing performances.
They are Vince Vaughn as Justin’s sometimes kind, sometimes
cruel debate-team coach; Kelli Garner as a student who selects Justin
to put an end to her virginity; Benjamin Bratt as Matt Schramm,
the TV star with a truly bad habit; and, perhaps most shocking
of all, Keanu Reeves as a murkily mystical orthodontist with a weird
plan for curing Justin of his thumbsucking.
Does the movie--which propels Justin through some bizarre bouts
with hypnosis, Attention Deficit Disorder, Ritalin and kinky sex--have
a happy ending? I won’t say, but guess which nurse gets to
hover over dopey Matt Schramm at the detox clinic? |
