Lymelife

(2009)

Directed by

Derick Martini

Review by Zach Saltz

Imagine a few weeks around Thanksgiving in chilly New England in the 1970s . . .

In the middle of widespread panic over a natural epidemic . . .

With two gloriously dysfunctional suburban families involved in duplicity and sexual trysts with one another . . .

With their children experimenting with drugs and first love and heartbreak . . .

And you’re imaging The Ice Storm, right?  Well, not quite.

Derick Martini’s Lymelife may in fact be The Ice Storm with Lyme disease instead of inclimate weather, but the film has a decidedly more real, gritty atmosphere as opposed to the unrealistic caricatures of Ang Lee’s 1997 feature.  It’s hardly a fun film to watch – it is filled with domestic disputes, bullying violence, and has some jaw-droppingly awful 1970s architecture and fashions – but the film succeeds because of its compelling characters, strong performances, and pitch-perfect capturing of an era of questionable fads and unknowns.

Alec Baldwin and Jill Hennessey star as Mickey and Brenda Bartlett, who live an idyllic Long Island double-wide in 1979.  They have two sons, rambunctious Jimmy (Kieran Culkin), who has been enlisted and returns home for Thanksgiving, and plucky 15-year-old Scott (Rory Culkin), who gets beat up after school and longs for neighborhood sexpot Adrianna (Emma Roberts).  Mickey, an architect, is in the process of building a new home next door for the family to eventually move into.  When he first shows his family what the sun country design for the new house looks like, they are skeptical.  “It looks like the Millennium Falcon,” Scott tells him. “You meant Millennium Falcon in a good way, right?” Mickey asks.

Adrianna’s family is no less maladjusted.  Her father, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), has been stricken with the psychosomatic ailments of Lyme disease and spends his time wielding around his rifle in search of the deer that carried the tic that infected him.  His wife, Melissa (Cynthia Nixon), is a business partner of Mickey, and the two are involved in a sexual affair that becomes evident to everyone in a heartbreaking scene at a bar when Mickey chooses to dance with her over Brenda.  Adrianna, ashamed of her mother, rejects her family by taking part in risky activities, such as drugs and alcohol, and it is her wild recklessness that perhaps most intrigues the stifled and sheltered Scott (who spends part of the movie bundled up in an airtight jacket with duct tape around the sleeves to protect him from the Lyme-carrying tics – Brenda’s idea).

There is a lot to like in Lymelife.  The dialogue is often pitch-perfect, especially in scenes involving the Baldwin and Hennessey, and Culkin and Roberts characters.  With their marriage crumbling, Brenda tells Mickey that the children of divorced parents tend to get away with more because of the lack of discipline in divorced households.  “You’re Dr. Ruth now?” He asks.  “Dr. Ruth is a sex therapist, Ben” Brenda replies.  “I saw it on Donahue.”  Scott and Adrianna meanwhile embellish in their parents’ respective misery by innocent flirtations that later amount to lies and hearsay when Adrianna breaks his heart by choosing another guy at school (like Cher Horowitz in Clueless, Adrianna dates only older guys).

The most affecting performances in the film belong to the Culkin brothers and Jill Hennessey.  Kieran Culkin’s fun-loving, sarcastic older brother is just what the movie needs to uplift its downtrodden and oppressively domestic atmosphere (never mind that the Faulkland Islands conflict actually occurred in 1982, not 1979).  Rory Culkin, who at 19 has quietly put together one of the strongest resumes of any young actor in Hollywood (You Can Count on Me, Signs, Mean Creek), creates a sympathetic and spunky young protagonist.  Hennessey’s Brenda is slightly hysterical, but well-meaning in her attempts to keep her family stable in the middle of crisis.  It’s a brave, almost subtle performance that few actresses could adequately perform without resorting to over-the-top melodrama.  The supporting cast is good too, with Roberts transcending the tired archetype of the neighborhood babe, and Baldwin giving the best speech of the film, a labored plea to his son on the roof, explaining – not absolving – why he was led to adultery.

The last 10 minutes of Lymelife are disappointing.  Martini, unsure of how to effectively resolve the conflicts of his characters, ends his film first with an uncomfortable extended deflowering scene between Culkin and Roberts, and proceeds to exchange rapid cuts between the film’s major characters as if to say that the struggle to conform to mechanized happiness within a phony suburban society is universal and unattainable.  This notion is prosaic, at best, and decidedly conventional for a movie that stays true to the aims of its characters rather than falling into the typical pitfalls of the “family in crisis” genre.  Nonetheless, for a film that could be tagged as little more than a rip-off of The Ice Storm, Lymelife is full of unexpected delights and compelling drama.

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