Jazz pianist Jeff is a recovering alcoholic and has been calm for almost three years. But he hasn’t yet begun to get his new state gift. Despite his satisfying marriage, his soul is a bag of anxiety — both his AA sponsor and his therapist appear to be devoted to new padding. The bag is set to explode, as Jeff is afraid to visit his exaggerated family in the week of July 4th.
Joe List, a comedian who co-authored the script, plays Jeff with the belief of a sloppy and sad bag. His real partner, comedian Sarah Tollemache, is grounded and fascinating as his wife Beth. The couple has a bantaling style that symbolizes off-screen gigs. However, neither of these talents (or, for that matter, one of the better support casts) has much to do with why you’re reading this review.
The director of “Independence Day” and other writers are Louis CK, a cartoonist who is keen to maintain his career after receiving multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. Louis CK has not faced criminal accusations, but his actions over the past few years, which he finally admitted, have been sneaky, cold and harmful. It leads to what some people call cancellation.
What he does in this movie will seem to help his list of colleagues who seem to have poured much of his own life into this story. For better or for worse, the story of being more moody than the humor from Jeff’s tragedy. A vacation trip to Maine-and his impressive hut on the lush hillside-perhaps reveals a clan of outstanding horror: a mother (Polaplum), whom Jeff considers exactly a “spider”. And make the racist and sexist cousin and uncle Puck Archie Bunker look like Dalai Lama. Jeff talks about when a female cousin appears with an interracial friend, recently widowed Naomi (Tara Pacheco), and a boy, what this arrival has brought from the family. Find one. Jeff’s dad (Robert Walsh) rarely talks.
As a director, Louis CK is a few feet wrong. Casting yourself as Jeff’s passive-aggressive therapist is a bad move. His performance is drool, but not enough to make his presence more than distracting. Then one morning, when Jeff is playing the piano in the cabin, there is a soup-like montage of Jeff and Beth. And Louis CK breaks out again to signal Jeff’s dad’s fragile emotional state — and the flashy green lights that fill the scene before Jeff’s meltdown. And finally, there is the ending. The dynamics of the family here are mercilessly brutal, so it’s a real shock to see how great the movie was to write it on paper. “Dr.” Phil “producer rewriting the three-act structure of Tracy Letts’ play. Without the involvement of Louis CK, the movie is worth shrugging “Nice Try”.
July 4th
Unrated. Execution time: 1 hour 30 minutes. At the theater.
