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Review Uploaded
09/30/02

1 hr. 36 mins.
Starring: Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldbum, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Jared Harris, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon

Director: Burr Steers

Rating: *** stars (out of 4 stars)

There’s something that can be said for disenfranchised rich kids caught up in their privileged social world that doesn’t quite cater to their real emotional needs. In writer-director Burr Steers’s coming-of-age teen alienation film Igby Goes Down, we get a portrait of a wayward youth lost in his own elitist prison of desperation and despair. In short, Steers puts a familiar spin on the “nobody understands the spoiled wealthy kid” theme. Although Igby Goes Down borrows heavily from fare ranging from The Graduate to Richie Rich to the Holden Caulfield antics demonstrated in Catcher in the Rye, the film generates a decent flair for angst-ridden tendencies and the misguided rebellion this youthful protagonist agonizes over with complete ambivalence.

Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) is one confused and complex teen with insurmountable issues to tackle. It seems the only safety net that this kid can cling onto is the revelation that he’s from a super-loaded financial family. But to understand the complexities behind Igby’s actions is to focus on the insanity behind his animated dysfunctional relatives. It’s no wonder that Igby is so twisted and perplexed about where he is from based on a pedigree of certified loonies that he calls family. His father (Bill Pullman) is holed up in a mental institution. His mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) is an indifferent lush that loves popping pills and swigging down hard liquor. And brother Oliver (Ryan Philippe) is a Columbia student with Fascist leanings who barely relates to his younger sibling. Hence, there’s nowhere for Igby’s disposition to go but down. To say that this kid is disenchanted is only half of the story.

So how does a rich kid who becomes disillusioned with his shaky life try to conquer the painful daggers of his deep vulnerability? Well, the 17-year-old adolescent thumbs his nose at his blue blood class by purposely embracing different degrees of alienation to offset his personal troubles. Among Igby’s tactics for accepting his downward spiral includes neglecting his school studies, getting kicked out of the best East Coast prep schools that good money can buy, ticking off his daffy and distance family members and being so impatient and difficult that even his bewildered therapist has to discipline him by way of a slap.

The determined Igby won’t be pushed around and dictated to by those who clearly don’t give a damn about his ruination. When Igby’s intoxicated “Mommy Dearest” Mimi dishes him off to a military academy because she simply doesn’t want to deal with her son’s disturbing problems, the boy runs away to the Big Apple where he sets out on his own perilous odyssey. Not only does Igby exploit Mimi by running up an enormous tab on her various credit cards, he takes pleasure in hanging out with Bohemian arch types that add more spice to his heralded shenanigans. Igby barges in on his high society godfather D.H.’s (Jeff Goldblum) place while striking up a relationship with the man’s dancer mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet). And through this free-spirited gal of D.H.’s, Igby also meets the dubious acquaintance of Russell (Jared Harris), a drug-dealing flighty artist and the sexually stimulating Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), an older flaky student engaged in an affair with Igby because it’s something to do just for self-fulfilling kicks.

Igby Goes Down has the presentation of an audacious opera. What Steers ensures is that his film has a lyrical mode to it that somehow connects the audience to the brash seriocomic events taking place. The filmmaker never overloads the film’s personalities with a blatant series of heavy-handed bravado while evenly serving up the hostility in believable, entertaining doses. There’s a vibrancy that gives a sardonic surge to the particulars of this off-kilter character study fable. Steers lends this film the right amount of edginess that allows the combustible quirkiness to radiate convincingly. The performances are energetic and surreal. Culkin captures the essence of Igby Slocumb’s tortured tyke. Sarandon has delicious fun as the substance-abusing socialite that no one will ever confuse with Leave it to Beaver’s June Clever. Overall, the supporting cast shines as they bring to life this caustically stylish tale of one teen’s rejection of his lavish yet languid lifestyle.

Igby Goes Down is aided by crafty direction, an exquisite cinematography and soothing music that highlight the moodiness and resplendence of this film’s passionate verve. This is a devilishly somber romantic comedy that pits the stronghold of “old money” against the absent idealism of one young man’s listlessness.