The narration is by way of introducing this movie’s characters, in particular its main character, Thomas Webb, a young man who was born too late to have caught any of Lou’s Bottom Line shows, poor lad. Lanky and bespectacled, once the movie switches to live-action, he stands before a framed Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover with Mimi, who’s not quite his girlfriend (they slept together, once, on a date he obsessively remembers, August 8, but she reminds him they were both hopped up on “molly” at the time), and discourses on the times he wishes he hadn’t missed. Mimi chats on, and she mentions to him that she may be headed to Croatia on a fellowship. This crushes him, he says, because, and I quote, “You’re the only thing in my life I’m settled on.”
There’s a rub here. This is obviously going to be a coming-of-age story, so the character is going to have some growing up to do. So, we’re not going to initially be all that into him right off the bat. Nevertheless, there’s something a little sickening about the glib confidence that Callum Turner, as Thomas, brings to the line reading. (That Mimi is played by a lovely woman of color, Kiersey Clemons, adds a certain something to the dynamic.) What I’m saying is, in a comedic bildungsroman like this one, it’s apt to have doubts about the hero early on, but you’re not supposed to want to throw him out of a high window. I did, and I never quite recovered from that feeling.
Thomas, not quite crushed returns to his Lower East Side walk up and finds on his steps one Jeff Bridges, playing a garrulous codger who introduces himself as W.F. Gerald and encourages Thomas to unload. Thomas does, and Bridges then provides the narration to wax cliché philosophical about Thomas’ family and their dinner-party friends: successful-wealthy publisher dad Ethan, played by Pierce Brosnan, and depressive-loving Mom Judith, played by Cynthia Nixon. Pals who wax nostalgic about old NYC and the golden days before the Internet ruined everything include Wallace Shawn, Debi Mazar, and Tate Donovan. “Now Bushwick is expensive,” one character exclaims. Very timely. Between this and the cynical observations Bridges adds, the scene really blows the lid off social activity.
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