Cheap Igby Goes Down (DVD) (Kieran Culkin, Jeff Goldblum, Susan Sarandon) (Burr Steers) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Igby Goes Down

Brilliant Dark Comedy
"Igby Goes Down" is one of the most intelligent and inventive films in recent years and certainly a surprising accomplishment for the typically formulaic American movie industry. As a dark comedy and a social commentary, the genius behind this film ranks it with other notables such as "Magnolia", "Rushmore", "American Beauty", and "Y Tu Mama Tambien". While Igby features an all-star cast including Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillipe, Bill Pullman, and Susan Sarandon, their celebrity personae are thankfully overshadowed by the quality of the story and its characters. In subsequent interviews that are available on the DVD, many of the actors stated that they were so impressed with the screenplay (written by director Burr Steers) that they were willing to work in a low budget film for a fraction of their normally astronomical wages. As a result, the viewer is rewarded with a kind of performance integrity that is hard to find in normal Hollywood films. The actors really want to act, not simply to be their public selves on screen.

The story begins with two brothers, Oliver (Phillippe), and Igby (Culkin) Slocum suffocating their mother, Mimi (Sarandon) to death. It then backtracks to show us the tortured world of the Slocum family and the strange but radically different paths with which the brothers respond to it. Mimi Slocum is a despotic and dysfunctional mother who is prone to violent fits while her husband Jason (Pullman) is a schizophrenic. From an early age, Oliver internalizes whatever pain and anger he feels toward his family situation and becomes a highly accomplished student, dutiful family member, and a faithful employee. In fact, Oliver evolves into such an intense conformist that the only thing that makes him likable is the sense that on some level his life is a sick parody of itself even if he doesn't fully realize it.

Not so for Igby who contrasts Oliver's stellar behavior by becoming the family's problem child. Kicked out of one private school after another and finally "on the lam" as he puts it, Igby plunges into a series of increasingly outrageous situations and delivers some of the wittiest lines of the film. Brilliant, vulnerable, chaotic, and self-destructive, Igby is hardly self-deluded and is certainly no weakling. The fact that Igby is fully aware of who and what he is prevents even the most tragic and difficult parts of this film from being manipulative. Igby never allows himself to hide behind pity, sentimentality or false bravado, and as a result, he prevents the audience from doing this as well. We're stuck with Igby on his crazy ride and we're forced to view the world with his wit and honesty.

Much of the communication in this film is handled with a subtlety that is almost fragile. While Mimi remains a poisonous matriarch from start to finish, she displays incredible moments of humanity with little more than a slight change of expression. Where one might think that with all of his condescension and indifference, Oliver must really hate Igby, this is hardly the case. There is tenderness there, but Oliver has managed to bury it beneath his well-crafted layers of conformity, that he's not about to dismantle as part of some idiotic emotional denouement. And even Igby's suave and sometimes brutal god father D.H. is not as simple as he seems.

For a film of ideas, sarcasm, and gut-wrenching emotion, "Igby Goes Down" is an amazingly smooth experience that can be enjoyed on several levels. I loved this film for its intelligence, its uniqueness, its thought provoking concepts and the wonderful quality of acting.

---

Kieran Culkin's triumph
Not every movie starts with a pair of teenage boys painstakingly killing their mother, and even fewer could make you like those boys. But "Igby Goes Down" actually manages to do this. It's a coming-of-age story (much as I hate the phrase) with humor and poignancy, and it's a hard role that the fantastic Kieran Culkin pulls off.

Igby's father (Bill Pullman) is in a mental home, his mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) is a pill-popping harpy, his godfather D.H. (Jeff Goldblum) is humorously scruple-free, and his brother Oliver (Ryan Phillippe) is cold-blooded and mercenary. Igby himself (Kieran Culkin) is a perpetual dropout who deliberately fails at every prep school he's sent to, and then he runs away from a cab taking him back to military school. Free at last of his suffocating upper-crust life, Igby secretly moves into the loft apartment of D.H.'s dancer-junkie mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet).

At first, things are okay for Igby, especially after he meets and falls for a cynical, ice-cream-eating college student named Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes). But when his brother disrupts his love life, his godfather finds out about Igby's relationship with Rachel, and Mimi's cancer grows worse, Igby begins to go down... unless he can break away to freedom.

One of the most unique aspects of "Igby Goes Down" is that a concrete reason is given for the lead character to rebel. Most rebels don't have a cause. But Igby rebels not just out of unhappiness, but out of fear that he (like his father) will "go down." One of the most moving parts of this film is when a young Igby (played by Kieran's little brother Rory) sees his father come unglued in the shower. An equally memorable scene has Igby hollowly repeating his father's words at his own reflection.

The humor is mainly of the weirder sort, like half the people in the cast punching Igby (even his SHRINK!), Mimi sitting on the maid's head, or the disgruntled drag queen ("Lucky... CHARMS!"). The dialogue is witty and full of little quotable insults. Kids probably shouldn't see this movie -- there's nudity, a couple of bedroom scenes, cursing and a few scenes involving suicide.

Kieran Culkin is brilliant in this film, which has garnered some of the recognition he deserves. Susan Sarandon seems to revel in her role as the mother-from-hell, and while I didn't like Ryan Phillippe in "Gosford Park," his cold acting fits the role of Oliver. Goldblum seems to be revelling just as much as Sarandon as Oliver's future self; Claire Danes, when she doesn't cry, is fantastic as the wannabe-cynic Sookie, who is obviously just as confused as Igby.

"Igby Goes Down" is worth watching, if nothing else, because of Culkin's fantastic acting. But it's also witty, sad, weird, and quite well-written. One of the best indie films of 2002 -- and that's saying a lot.

---

Quirky characters, fine dialogue, and sparkling performances
This unconventional film about a teenage boy struggling to escape the crushing pressures in his life defies categorization. While one could describe it as a dark comedy, it is funny only in places, and then in a desperate, cynical way. But it doesn't take itself as seriously as a true drama. "Igby Goes Down" works best as a film that is what it is: the story of Igby (Kieran Culkin), who has been kicked out of every private school his mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) has enrolled him in and who goes on the lam to avoid the next one. Igby's father (Bill Pullman) has been in a mental hospital for the past six years, and his mother is a snooty matron dying of breast cancer who spends her time fiercely trying to get Igby into yet another school. His brother Oliver (Ryan Phillippe) is a snobbish self-important Columbia undergrad. Igby's life is truly messed up, and no one can stand to be in his company for long before they feel like hitting him. The one thing Igby has going for him is an often charming wit, and that, combined with so many things beyond his control, endears him to the viewer.

Culkin shows surprising range as Igby, moving convincingly from sarcastic to resourceful to desperate - and back again to sarcastic. Claires Danes is spunky and perfectly edgy as the Bennington drop-out Sookie, and Amanda Peet is even better as the sensual non-dancer dancer and junkie Rachel. Jeff Goldblum turns in a fine performance as DH, Igby's godfather, who, as Oliver says, is finely-tuned for only one thing: making money. Susan Sarandon seems to float through this movie until the end, when she, too, reveals astonishing aspects of her character. Every last character is this film is quirky.

This is an offbeat, unpredictable film that mainstream film goers probably won't like as much as those who gravitate toward the unconventional. Rather than being driven by plot, this is a character movie, with its strength resting in idiosyncrasies, smart dialogue, and acting.