There are many people in New York City, each with their own tales to tell. The fellow and his story that The Only Living Boy In New York chooses to follow is that of Thomas Webb (Callum Turner), a young man who is struggling in life as he pines for a woman, Mimi Pastori (Kiersey Clemons) whose already in a committed relationship and similarly faces troubles in his relationship with his publisher father Ethan (Pierce Brosnan). At least he has a quirky new neighbor, W.F. Gerald (Jeff Bridges), to vent about all of his sorrows to, that certainly helps keep him sane despite all that's going on in his life.
Further complications arise for him when he and Mimi inadvertently stumble on Ethan carrying on an affair with Johanna (Kate Beckinsale). Thomas takes it on himself to do some sleuthing on Johanna in an effort to stop her form seeing his dad. Of course, that plan goes awry when Johanna not only catches wind of him following her around but also agrees to start sleeping with Thomas. The two's newfound relationship further fractures the relationships Thomas has with Mimi and Ethan. One could even say, when it comes to Thomas's life, "it's complicated", but that's the name of a Meryl Streep/Alec Baldwin movie and this one is called The Only Living Boy In New York.
The Only Living Boy In New York really does seem like it wants to be a Woody Allen movie like crazy with its dialogue sometimes seemingly patterning itself after the style of conversations found in Allen's work while the protagonist, a dweeby nerd with artistic ambitions who finds himself both baffled and insanely attracted to women, is very much the kind of lead character Woody Allen would play. But boy howdy does Callum Turner flounder in trying to play that type of individual. He doesn't go for a Woody Allen impression in his performance but the thing is, he doesn't go for all that much of anything in his performance, he's a bland blank slate for the entirety of the movie.
Armed with the voice of Chris Evans (seriously, am I the only one who thinks he sounds just like Mr. Evans?) and an imposing tall frame that seems at odds with the character as written, Callum Turner delivers lines in a flaccid manner that just makes him seem confused at what exactly either the script or director want him to do. This isn't a problem exclusive to Mr. Turner of course, as veteran actors like Jeff Bridges and Pierce Brosnan also look perpetually dazed and lost. How could they not be when Allan Loeb's screenplay is such a jumbled mess, one devoid of any interesting characters or plotlines that can captivate a viewers attention. The main hook for this tale seems to be trying to filter the basic premise of a 1930's screwball comedy through the prism of a 1970's Woody Allen joint and then make it as montonous as possible. If that was the ambition behind making this feature, I guess they were successful.
The script has a particularly bad habit of briefly touching on hefty ideas or topics like gentrification or generational clashes without ever going anywhere with them. Another convention Loeb's writing has is a tendency to let the characters just drone on and on with monotonous dialogue. Devoting so much of the screentime to characters blabbing on endlessly is a key reason why The Only Living Boy In New York becomes such a forgettable and tedious movie (though at least a super duper brief cameo by Wallace Shawn gives the movie a few seconds of life), though Marc Webb's unremarkable directing doesn't help, on the contrary, the tepid directing is basically akin to plopping tons of salt on the wounds of the anemic screenplay. Maybe the titular boy in this movie is "living" but The Only Living Boy In New York is totally dead on arrival.
No comments:
Post a Comment