Igby Goes Down
 I caught this dark comedy at Lincoln Center Plaza on Saturday with my friend Mark Moorman. The eponymous hero, the younger of two brothers in a dysfunctional family oozing with old money, ends up living on the streets of Manhattan after his disdain for authority gets him tossed out of a string of prep schools. As someone who can always bum some cash if he really needs it, Igby's ensuing collisions with reality never seriously threaten to change him. He battles, rather, to steer clear of the path chosen by his robotically perfect brother and to sponge off friends, relatives, and lovers, all without hating himself too intensely.
Deftly cast, the movie's mostly young actors exceed the material. Kieran Culkin's Igby carries the film as lightly as his own perpetual smirk. As Igby's sourmash mother, Susan Sarandon earns points for her willingness to look haggardly middle-aged in some brutal closeups. Ryan Phillipe -- his already icy features made even more cruel by flawless Ivy League costuming -- sports a self-absorbed sensuality that promises girlfriends nothing but trouble.
The jaded characters toss off much witty and literate bantering. Lovers of New York movies will quickly recognize this as Woody Allen territory, with West Side neurotics replaced by East Side degenerates. Often the visual composition of the movie is striking. I was riveted by a long shot in which the camera, nosing along the floor after an ominous crashing sound, moves from reddish fragments of glass to Igby's schizophrenic father bleeding helplessly in the shower.
Like its hero, however, the movie never decides what it wants to be when it grows up. It dares to negotiate vertiginous tonal switchbacks -- juxtaposing broad comedy, sordid realism, and arch irony in the space of minutes -- but in the end, when a culminating viewpoint is required, it can summon only sentimentality. Amusing as it is, the film's satire of upper-class types -- real-estate moguls, pill-popping Moms, East Village artistes, and the teenage hero trying to cling to integrity -- make few fresh points about characters we have pegged from their first appearance.
And now for the really bad news. The musical score -- always the flash point for me in any movie -- offended with intrusive superfluity; alternative rock erupted on cue during scenes meant to have an edge, and soft strings played melting chords during scenes meant to evoke a catch in the throat. It's the kind of score you can order off the Web.
5:43:24 PM 
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