Lymelife
By Marshall Fine
Rating:
Who's in it: Alec Baldwin, Jill Hennessy, Cynthia Nixon, Emma Roberts
What's it about: The lives of two families on Long Island intersect in comic and tragic ways in 1979.
Family time: Told from the viewpoint of teen-age Jimmy Bartlett (Rory Culkin), this film is about him realizing just how human his parents (Baldwin, Hennessy) are and how far they fall in his eyes as a result. Plus he's got a crush on lifelong friend Adrianna (Roberts), who has a thing for older boys. And his dad is having an affair with her mother (Nixon). Writer-director Derick Martini's drama bounces back and forth between laughter and tears, with occasionally heavy-handed symbolism. Still, Culkin and Roberts have an interesting chemistry and Baldwin gives his strongest film performance in a long time. But Martini's dealing with volatile elements he can't quite control.
Long story short: Always interesting, it can't quite decide what it is.
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