Can’t always get what you want

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This article was published 29/09/2017 (3298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Befitting a movie about mid-life crisis, writer-director Mike White’s Brad’s Status is a comedy that feels uncomfortable in its own skin.

Its hero Brad, played by Hollywood’s current go-to neurotic Ben Stiller, is a man who deserves to be satisfied with his life. He has a job with a non-profit he created, designed to help charities get money. Not lucrative perhaps, but not unrewarding. He has a beautiful, supportive wife (Jenna Fischer). And he has an 18-year-old son, Troy (Austin Abrams), whose musical skill has put him on the fast track to an acceptance at Harvard.

But as Brad embarks on a trip from Sacramento to the East Coast with his son, his awkwardness is palpable. We are aware of this because White allows us to be privy to Brad’s thoughts in a running narration. (Also, the musical soundtrack to Brad’s life is a solo violin score that ranks comparably to Bernard Herrmann’s soundtrack for Psycho when it comes to soothing the spirit.)

It doesn’t help that Troy, while still loving, has reached an age where he isn’t as impressed by his dad as he used to be. In trying to re-establish a connection, Brad even resorts to the persona of the “tickle monster” in a scene that rings with more poignance than comedy.

The root of Brad’s anxiety is connected to his forced recollection of his own college experience. Brad attended a lesser university with old friends who achieved comparatively stellar success. Craig (Michael Sheen) is a best-selling author and media pundit. Jason (Luke Wilson) is a high-flying corporate titan with his own private jet. Billy (Jemaine Clement) is a tech kingpin who has already accumulated enough wealth to retire to Hawaii with a couple of beautiful younger women as housemates. And Nick (played by White himself) is a Hollywood titan whose home is featured in the latest issue of Architectural Digest.

Brad can’t resist the impulse to judge his own life as it stacks up against his more successful friends. That issue is exacerbated when Brad discovers he needs Craig’s help to secure a Harvard interview for his son.

White and Stiller both allow the character sympathy, and neither resorts to an attack on Brad’s essential decency.

But the character does get a comeuppance as the price for his envy. It comes, deliciously, at the hands of one of Troy’s would-be classmates, Ananya (Shazi Raja), who consents to listen to Brad’s tale of woe and gives him a brisk rebuke for his self-pity.

This is a terrific scene that serves as a wake-up slap in the face to both Brad and an audience perhaps inclined to be too sympathetic to Brad’s not-all-that-dire dilemma, especially in the face of some revelations from Craig that the old gang isn’t as happy as Brad thought.

So, no, the film isn’t the kind of goofy farce Stiller himself might have directed. But it does offer satisfaction in White’s choice to challenge the audience instead of ingratiating itself to us with a pat happy ending.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing