| A Delicate Balance |  |
Seventeen-year-old Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) has every reason to be rebellious and sarcastic. His father Jason (Bill Pullman) is schizophrenic. His mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) is self-absorbed and highly favors Igby's older brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) who is as cold and calculating as their mother and an elitist, too.
Igby intentionally flunks out of several prep and military schools which are paid for by his sleazy, amoral and very wealthy godfather D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum), who is brazen enough to invite his mistress to his party in the Hamptons, right under the nose of his wife Bunny (Celia Weston).
The only recourse for Igby is to escape to the Bohemian world of NYC where he pairs up with his first lover, the bored Bennington dropout Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), a drug dealing, cross-dressing performance artist Russel (Jared Harris), and his godfather's heroin addicted mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet).
Can Igby clear himself of the dysfunction surrounding him and find a way to keep from "going down" into the depths himself?
Some of my favorite lines from the film include:
Sookie: What kind of name is 'Igby'?
Igby: The kind of name that someone named 'Sookie' is in no position to question.
Sookie: You call your mother "Mimi"?
Igby: "Heinous One" is a bit cumbersome. And Medea was taken.
Igby: Oliver is majoring in neo-fascism at Colombia.
Ollie: Economics.
Igby: Semantics.
I have to say, I was highly impressed with the acting talents of young Kieran Culkin in this fine character study and another of his films I saw recently and I'll be watching for his other films in the future. And I couldn't help but notice his remarkable resemblance in appearance, mannerisms and acting methods to Robert Downey, Jr., another of my favorites.
This film was written and directed by Burt Steers whose uncle, Gore Vidal, has a brief cameo as a Catholic priest. Rory Culkin, Kieran's brother, plays the young Igby in a few scenes.
Rated R by MPAA for language, sexuality, and drug content.
viewed January 2008
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