"Igby Goes Down," now playing at Madstone Theaters, is one of the best movies to come out this year bar none.
With a stellar cast, phenomenal writing, a score that exceeds all standards of what can be done with music in film and one of the strongest performances this year, "Igby Goes Down" should be a strong contender for all categories of the Academy Awards.
With Kieran Culkin playing Igby, a perennial screw-up from a family of old money, and Ryan Phillippe playing his older, Republican brother, Ollie, the cast is full of talent. Add Susan Sarandon as the boys' mother, Jeff Goldblum as Igby's godfather, Claire Danes as a pretender to the bohemian lifestyle and Amanda Peet as an artist with whom Igby is infatuated -- this movie has more talent than the last six Hollywood blockbusters combined. Not to mention Bill Pullman's performance of the year as Igby and Ollie's father.
But the filmmakers did not just assemble the best actors around and toss them in without a decent script. The writing in this movie is amazing. Borrowing heavily from The Catcher in the Rye, as most "troubled-youth" plots tend to do, "Igby Goes Down" is mainly concerned with Igby, the young boy who has failed out of most schools along the east coast.
Taking things a step further though, is the complication of Igby's familial situation. His mother hates him and he hates her, his brother is a complete reversal from his own personality and the one person that he's ever looked up to, his father, is "recovering" at a mental health institution -- and has been for the past six years.
The movie is told via a frame story, and the opening sequence is shocking and almost overwhelmingly original. How Igby got to that point is then recounted. We are taken through a Catholic school where Igby asks the question, "If Heaven is such a wonderful place then how is getting crucified such a big sacrifice?" to a military school where the first image is of Igby smoking pot in one of the dorm rooms, all the way to his pilfering of his mother's credit card to rent a suite at an expensive hotel.
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Igby goes through many more trials and tribulations during his journey to self-awareness, none particularly unique, but all having their own fresh, innovative spin.
Along the way, Igby meets Sookie (Danes) at a party, Rachel (Peet) as his godfather's mistress and Russell (Harris) as an underdeveloped bit character who lives with Rachel. He enters into a contract with his godfather (Goldblum), gets beat up by nearly every one of the characters, has sex with both of the attractive girls that he has met and sells drugs to a former art teacher.
Bill Pullman is truly the Actor of the Year in this movie, even if he will only get nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The depths he reaches with the role are incredible and breathtaking.
"Igby Goes Down" is one of the best films to come out this year, a rare treasure in which all the elements of filmmaking come together and gel into a cohesive unit and yields a delight.
