Movies for Your Pleasure: Scotland, PA and Igby Goes Down
By Lauren Isaacson
Okay, you’re probably sensing a theme by now, as I review one dark comedy after another. Am I that obvious? Oh well, subtlety was never one of my strong points. I guess I should review something a little more uplifting. Something about the power of the human spirit, or some other kind of rot, but until that grant from Disney comes through, it’s just not going to happen. My money, my choice. Get your own column you fascist.
Scotland, PA
What would William Shakespeare do if he had actually lived during the polyester glamour of the 1970’s instead of the natural fabric drab of the Elizabethan era? Would he have set the plight of the Macbeth’s in rural small town Pennsylvania? Possibly. How about at a fast food restaurant? Probably not. What if he had smoked more than just a few joints and was really hungry? Okay, maybe.
Mac and Pat are married and work at the same run down, behind the times
fast food joint. When the manager is fired for stealing, Mac seems the
most likely candidate to take his place. He does a good job, he has progressive
ideas about the business, and is well liked by everyone. But, he’s
not the owner’s son.
So Mac gets offered the job of assistant manager and Pat is furious. So
she convinces Mac that the only way for them to get everything they richly
deserve is kill Duncan, the king of burgers, and make it look like a botched
robbery. They then use the money from the robbery to buy the restaurant
from Duncan’s children and rule their own kingdom of fast food.
Bits of the Bard seeps through the script, the three witches (seen as carnival going hippies by a drunken Mac), specters of some of Mac’s victims on his rise to power, the spot of guilt that never leaves Pat, but that’s about all you’ll see of Shakespeare in this film. It’s for the Cliff Notes readers, not the English majors.
The bonus material is pretty run of the mill. Deleted scenes, director’s commentary, and a few clips from the Sundance Channel. The running monologue of the director’s commentary isn’t particularly insightful, more about the cost of this song versus that song and other woes of budget constraints. No real gems of insight to be found here.
As a whole the film was good for a few laughs. Not great, but not bad either. I found my attention wandering every so often during the film, which I do not consider to be a good sign.
And unlike Roxy music, this was for your apathy.
Igby Goes Down
Once again we delve into the world of my favorite dark subject – messed up people doing messed up things, and let me tell you, this was really messed up.
Igby
(Kieran Culkin) was born to a life of privilege and has done everything
in his power to reject it. He has gotten kicked out of every reputable
prep school and military school on the Eastern seaboard. He partakes in
his mother’s menagerie of prescribed downers and uppers, along with
helping himself to her credit cards and available cash. He’s shacking
up with his godfather’s mistress. He refuses to work a conventional
job. He blames everyone and everything for the course his life has taken,
especially his complete bitch of a mother (Susan Sarandon), and fails
to take any of the blame upon his self.
What could possibly be left for our poor counter ambitious antihero? Well,
there is offing your dying mother, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
As much of an unredeemable turd that Igby is, you can’t help but
feel sorry for him. He has gotten booby prize from life. His father is
a committed schizophrenic, his mother is an evil excuse for a human being,
the only emotion his brother is capable of displaying is jealousy (which
he acts out by stealing the only good thing in Igby’s life, his
girlfriend, right out of Igby’s bed), and he doesn’t seem
to have any friends or people who sincerely care about him. Why wouldn’t
he reject ascots and Ivy Leagues that seem preordained for him? Why not
get a head start on genetically predisposed nervous break down? It seems
perfectly natural to me.
This was an excellent film. It was smartly written, the performances were great, the cinematography is beautiful without distracting the viewer from the characters, and it did something I always like to see in a good story – it disturbed me. It left my sense of balance and order a little off kilter, and I liked it.
The bonus features were standard fare. There is a commentary with featuring the writer/director and Kieran Culkin (where they reminisce about quirky stories that happened during filming), a “making of” featurette, deleted scenes, and a set of publicity stills. Nothing particularly amusing.
And just like Roxy Music, this is for your pleasure.