Release Date: 5/1/09 (Limited)
Lymelife, written and directed by young filmmaker Derrick Martini, is an independent heavy drama set in the 70’s that centers on two dysfunctional families. This film reminded me a lot of Ang Lee’s film The Ice Storm and it even had some similarities with the 1980 best picture winner Ordinary People. This film is far from an Oscar contender but it did keep my interest the whole way while having some really surprising performances from its actors. The film holds it’s own as a drama, but didn’t really wow me in any particular way, which lets it drop into the mediocre category.
Set in Long Island, Lymelife follows two families who crumble when tangled relationships, real estate problems and Lyme disease converge in the heart of suburbia. Fifteen-year-old Scott Bartlett played by Rory Culkin (The best acting Culkin of the bunch) is a gentle boy, radically different from his arrogant father Mickey played by Alec Baldwin (The best Baldwin actor of the bunch) and tightly wired mother Brenda played by Jill Hennessy. An outbreak of Lyme disease, as well as the accompanying paranoia, hits their suburban community hard. When the Bartlett’s’ neighbor Charlie Bragg played by Timothy Hutton is diagnosed with the illness. Growing up in the middle of this crisis is Scott, who has been in love with the Braggs’ daughter Adrianna played by Emma Roberts (Daughter of Eric Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts) for all of his young life. The news both good and bad is that she is starting to return his interest. Things really heat up when Jimmy played by Kieran Culkin, Scott’s older brother, comes home on leave from the army. Jimmy shares many of his father’s personality traits, and his confrontations with Mickey trigger events that permanently scar both families.
The film has its moments, the writing isn’t particularly great but some scenes are written very well. The scenes with Adrianna and Scott were by far the best. The two young actors were very convincing and had great chemistry together. I’m not a fan of the older Culkin’s character Jimmy who is the actual brother of Rory. I like that they did this but I really don’t think Kieran Culkin is a good actor at all. There is one very intense scene with Kieran and Alec Baldwin and it was just really hard to get into because Kieran wasn’t doing it for me.
Alec Baldwin on the other hand was phenomenal. He played the arrogant asshole Dad perfectly. He was in the two scenes that I really enjoyed, one with Rory Culkin where he almost loses it trying to take his son who can’t stand the sight of him to the ice cream store. The other scene is when his wife who also can’t stand the sight of him loses her temper and they get into a screaming match. Those two scenes made for some of the best drama of the film. Then there was Timothy Hutton, who plays a very strange character in the film. I am usually a huge fan of Mr. Hutton but this performance didn’t really do anything for me.
I can’t say I was a big fan of the ending either, it’s one of those that leave you asking yourself the question, what the fuck? I usually am a big fan of these endings, but this one just didn’t do it for me, and in the end Lymelife itself just didn’t do anything for me. I’d say wait for DVD or possibly even HBO.
IMDB: 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 57%
Moviewiseguys: 6.5/10