PEOPLE LIKE US
is under the radar. It’s just a little movie but with
recognizable actors. Unadvertised, no media blitz for this modest film, but
what a bittersweet tale of family ties, secrets and betrayal. We need more
small movies like this low-key tale of redemption. The movie is based loosely on
writer/director Alex Kurtzman’s real life story that brings
a heads up quality to the action.
The tale begins
with a RAIN MAN like scene of a fast taking businessman, Sam (Chris Pine). He
is making things happen at various goods production factories where non-selling
items are remarketed to make some sort of monetary return on poor performers.
Unfortunately his expired soup explodes in an unrefrigerated train on its way
to potential Mexican buyers. While negotiating around his boss's less than
happy ultimatum on these losing results, he keeps declining his mother’s unusual cell phone interruptions.
Upon returning to his NY home, his
paramour, the understanding but no fool Olivia Wilde tells him the sad news of
his dad's death. Sam tries to invent many reasons not to attend the funeral in LA
but finally he arrives at his mother’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) home
intentionally late enough to miss the service only to be greeted with a well-deserved
slap on the face.
The father’s lawyer later tells him that Sam is bequeathed only the record
producing father's LP collection. At the same time, he is given his Dad’s shaving kit filled with $150,000 and a note to deliver it to a name
and address with an added sentence to "watch over them".
It now gets
messy. Sam discovers, at this address, a beautiful although skanky-ish single mother Frankie ( Elizabeth Banks) and
her prepubescent borderline JD son (Michael
Hall D'Addari). Sam learns
(while following the young woman conveniently to her neighborhood AA meeting) of
her fury at her non-existence by reading aloud her exclusion from her/ their
father’s obituary. It gets
complicated as Chris Pine ensconces himself in their lives while never claiming
his identity.
Bar scenes with
his not yet acknowledged half-sister reveal parts of her life with their common
Dad while Sam’s independent interactions with
the 11 ‘in years almost 25 in
sophistication’ nephew whose love of music
matches Sam’s, links them genetically to
the dead father/grandfather. The mutual anger of his half sister's desertion by
their father by age 8 as well as Sam’s own rage at a father never
being there for him culminating with no inheritance swim over the two siblings.
The story meanders with interspersed confrontations with his mother and her overdue
admittance that she insisted the egocentric rock music producer husband/father
chose between the two families.
Genetically
similar distancing skills and irresponsible tendencies include using ‘the system’ for their own selfish benefit
permeate the brother and sister’s interactions. The
undercurrent of incest between the two until the truth is told is always present
but happily chaste, for the audience's sake. The siblings need unconditional
love more than romantic love anyway.
As one can
imagine in a Hollywood movie, everyone comes out ok in the end but this
reviewer was left with a sadness of parental poor choices and secrets soiling
the next generation for many years if not an entire lifetime.
It’s worth seeing but it will not be. There are too many
heavily advertised movies this summer and many with 3 D enticements. But some
night at home around 10:15pm or 2 am as your remote lingers on the title; watch
it and you will be in for an unexpected treat. Or plunk down the cash now at
AMC or eventually Netflix. It might make
some of us happy we grew up in the homes we did or remind others of us that secrets
seldom serve the righteous and typically each player suffers as a result.
carole
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