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| Elisabeth Moss and Jason Schwartzman do great work in the mellow Listen Up Philip (/Sundance) |
Alex Ross Perry’s newest
feature – and highest-profile to date – is Listen
Up Philip, and it’s a curious beast. At his best, Perry reminds me of a
young Wes Anderson – his style is as close and freewheeling as Anderson’s is geometric
and closed-in, but there’s a comparable specificity in worldview and humor.
Moreover, Philip is indelibly marked:
Perry’s attraction to selfishness and to the artistic mind (which are, by no
means, mutually exclusive) is fully on-display.
Perry’s focus here is
exclusive to artists; Philip (Jason Schwartzman, excellent) has achieved
moderate success with the publishing of his second book, but profound
insecurity and incurable frustrations-with-the-world prevent him from attaining
happiness and contentment, not to mention any greater achievements. His
relationship with girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss), a photographer finding
her own success, is fading, and his relationship to the written word is at an
indescribable standstill.
Philip is introduced as
really, truly, insufferable. He meets up with old college flings and friends
and abrasively punishes them for not believing in him all those years ago. His demands
to publicists, to his manager and even to Ashley reflect an astonishing
self-absorption and nerve. But buried beneath it, Schwartzman ably conveys perpetual
dissatisfaction and unending insecurity. Perry doesn’t hold back in
demonstrating just how cruel Philip can be, but there’s both a comedic and
dramatic intent here.
Listen
Up Philip isn’t
interested in big answers about artistic minds or cracking relationships. When most effective, it’s a caustically funny
and emotionally resonant character study that jumps between three interconnecting
stories (Moss and Schwartzman are joined by Jonathan Pryce as Ike, Philip’s
mentor that eventually houses him in his country getaway), each about people
trying to move past specific points in their life. There are unifying ideas of
regret – Ashley wasting years with the miserable Philip, Ike contending with
the consequences of his youthful pretensions pushing his family and friends
away – and identity affirmation, and they connect nicely. When Philip leaves
Ashley, a significant portion of time is dedicated to just watching her move
on, carve out an individual identity, and rest with her own prickliness and
capacity for coldness. It’s a small albeit notable vignette that represents
Perry’s directorial effort at its most successful.
Perry’s eye is
luminously cinematic and aides in providing Listen
Up Philip with an unusual (albeit welcome) affection for, and understanding
of, its characters. It’s also steadily, strikingly intelligent, well-balanced
in its focus on individual people, on family and relationship dynamics, and on
the connection between an artist and their work. There’s never a moment that
feels false or strained, out-of-place or poorly-developed. To an impressive
degree, Perry earns his big moments, and despite his atypical narrative
structure, the film flows beautifully.
So, with all that in
mind, Listen Up Philip may do all of
the little things right, but it oddly fails to land. Its opening third is
remarkably funny and beautifully acted, but it loses its steam fast. Its looseness
is both the blessing and the curse here: there’s just a general lack of
momentum and of intrigue, to the point where it feels like the film is meandering.
Again, it’s always intelligent; well-observed and crafted as it is, it too
often has too little to offer. It loses its comedic bite and its character
focus eventually strains to compel – while Ike’s story, for instance, ties into
Philip’s effectively and speaks to his potential downward spiral, it just doesn’t
grab you. Pryce does solid work here, but it feels both peripheral and
seriously lacking in urgency. Having just raved
about a film that is similarly momentum-averse, this is not necessarily
troublesome. But in Listen Up Philip,
what holds you? Its acerbic humor, for one thing, but that fades over time. Philip gets more serious and approaches
its characters with an increasingly-dramatic focus, but the narrative doesn’t
warrant it.
For much of his second
half, Perry occupies a soft middle ground, lightly funny and dramatically
understated. Once Ms. Moss, a radiant presence here, fades, and our attention
shifts to Ike’s reinvigorated desire to write with the presence of the protégée
Philip, and Philip’s realization that there might not be anything to search for
that will fill that illusive hole, Listen
Up Philip is a gentle downer. It’s not quite painful enough, not quite
funny enough, not quite interesting enough. The idiosyncrasy and authenticity
of Perry’s style is what prevents his film from seriously working. One can
appreciate the resistance to artificial conflict and gratuitous melodrama, and
there are great performances abound here – Krysten Ritter pops up in a nice,
small turn as Ike’s daughter – but when all is said and done, that resistance
isn’t replaced by anything. Once the film ends in an intellectually-strong albeit
typically-understated place, you get the feeling that Listen Up Philip just floated on by. It’s risk-averse – and considering
how gloriously unpleasant it began, this fact is the movie’s greatest let-down.
Grade:
B-