User Reviews

If this were a bigger movie, Molly Shannon might soon be getting a few Big League nominations. She might anyway. Who expected Sally O'Malley to inhabit a fully formed married Sacramento mom of three older children, dying of cancer? Miss Shannon is funny and painful and riveting to watch as she shows us her love and rage and pride in her kids and worry about their future, and frustration with her failing body and nice clueless husband, and her wish to just sometimes give up and die already. It takes a deeply skilled actor to hide nothing, be still, and let the camera have it's way with you. Who knew? She gets a lot of help from Jesse Plemons as her struggling gay son David who is hurting from his own heavy baggage. Mr. Plemons' face is our guide to this family, not acting, just letting us tag along and marvel at his devotion to his sick Mom.

A terrific young group of fun talented stars of tomorrow fill in the family and church and choir and other Sacramentoes and the likes of Paul Dooley, June Squibb, Bradley Whitford and an Apatow kid make Director Chris Kelly's already superb script better.

Funny laugh out loud bits and great private one-on-ones that don't feel rushed. No sitcom feel or fake intimacy in Other People. These people matter to one another.

Other People brought back for me those intimate moments in Carmela Soprano's kitchen when another complicated family was trying to have closeness and understanding at the dinner table. Aren't we all?

A comedy writer returns from NYC to his childhood home in Sacramento for an indefinite period, at a time when his Mom is undergoing treatment for cancer and when he has just ended a five-year relationship. Presented in episodic, "slice-of-life" scenes titled with every month in what is unavoidably a really terrible year for this guy, the story is economically told yet beautifully cohesive.

You might think a story dealing with a parent's serious illness and impending death would necessarily flirt with sentimentality, but writer-director Chris Kelly (whose own experiences are the obvious source material) is so truthful and self-aware that he almost completely manages to avoid every pitfall. Instead, we get an honest picture of the struggle to find or 'feel' meaning in this year spent, with somewhat mixed feelings, in the bosom of a fairly loving but realistic family--living in his childhood bedroom, sleeping in his old twin bed, and struggling with writer's block at his childhood mahogany desk (his greatest heart's desire as a 2nd-grader).

As Kelly's unlikely stand-in, David, Jesse Plemons gives a fantastically honest & fearless performance. (As with Season 2 of the FX series "Fargo," I kept thinking, "Who is this guy?? How does he have the guts to be so exposed?") Plemons does addled, understated angst like nobody else. As his ex, Zach Woods (only familiar to me from "Silicon Valley" and "The Office") is a revelation of sweetness and adorability. (I sort of hope they get back together...)

Many people will find Molly Shannon's performance as the Mom with cancer extremely powerful and brave. Yes, she was very good... skirting the threat of sentimentality and managing to avoid it in almost every scene. The Dad's and sisters' roles are not as prominent, which is probably part of the point. But I wouldn't have minded seeing them beefed up a bit. The conflict between David and his Dad over his sexual orientation might have better served as fodder for another story and another movie. Its presence in this movie sometimes seemed a bit off-topic, needlessly shifting the focus.

In a sort-of-gratuitous but very enjoyable role, J.J. Totah appears as a campy tween drag queen, the adopted younger brother of an old high school friend. At the Busan film festival screening full of Koreans that I attended, he was a clear audience favorite.

Sacramento is depicted as a provincial no-man's land, and the scene in a local gay bar was definitely non-PC. It might bother some viewers, but illustrates the writer-director's commitment to total honesty, even at the cost of losing a little respect from adherents of social justice.

Does David ever find the meaning and connection he is hoping for? I recommend that you see the film and decide for yourself.

8.5 -- possibly 9

David (Jesse Plemons) while being gay, is an unsuccessful comedy writer. He travels from NYC to Sacramento to be with his family and dying mother Joanne, (Molly Shannon) who has Leiomyosarcoma Cancer. David's father (Bradley Whitford) has never accepted his son being gay, a topic they avoid, but eventually does surface, as his being gay is the other half of the story. His two sisters help out (Madisen Beaty, Maude Apatow.) The film opens up as it ends, rather sadly. The first half of the film has some light moments and laughs, but about half way through it turns into a serious drama that is nearly all sad, a mild tear-jerker. Acting was good. The script was top notch, for what it was, but had less appeal to me.

Guide: F-word, MMsex, brief nudity.

Kimberly Jones of The Austin Chronicle explains the title of Chris Kelly's new dramedy: "For the lucky ones, untouched by tragedy, bad things are what happen to other people." Kelly's protagonist, David Mulcahey (Jesse Plemons) is a failing New York based gay comedy writer who returns to his Sacramento suburban home to take care of his mother Joanne (Molly Shannon), dying of a rare cancer. As Jones informs, David's "other people" now "become his people."

Kelly realizes that an unrelenting story about a cancer victim and how it affects friends and family might become a little too heavy-handed for his audience to tolerate for the duration of an entire feature film, so he injects a modicum of humor to balance things out. Unfortunately not all of the humor hits the mark—Erin Whitney of Screen Crush asks us to consider the opening scene where David and the rest of his family-- including his distant, gay-aversive father and younger sisters--are lying in bed, crying for their dying mother: "A friend who has just learned of Joanne's cancer leaves a heedless voicemail, wishing the now-dead Joanne good health while arguing with a Taco Bell employee in a drive-thru." For Whitney, "this is the type of hollow humor that underlines much of Other People, a would-be dramedy that's too removed and too safe to leave a lasting impression."

Whitney echoes the main criticism of Other People by those critics unimpressed by Kelly's protagonist, modeled on his own experiences: "it's much more about its lead character wallowing in self-pity. David expresses so much contempt for those around him; Sacramento folk, his family, every guy on OKCupid, and a hometown acquaintance with writing aspirations, but much of his sorrow lacks real passion."

A.A. Dowd of A.V. Club wisely argues that the focus on David's self-pity leads to the lack of development of other characters: "But the bigger problem may be David himself, who's a bit exhausting in his self-pity...'I'll have no mom, no dad, no boyfriend, no job,' David whines early on—and if Other People is willing to occasionally acknowledge his selfishness, it also adopts his tunnel vision so completely that few other characters (including David's younger sisters, one of them played by an Apatow daughter) ever gain much dimension."

Justin Chang notices the inconsistency in some of the characters: " It's the sort of movie that treats David's grandparents (June Squibb, Paul Dooley) as senile comic targets one minute and spouters of sentimental wisdom the next."

But Keith Watson in Slant Magazine argues that Other People is at its sharpest when David's family and friends step on the stage: "While these characters exist primarily to teach David various lessons (be more confident, put yourself out there, reconnect with your family), Kelly provides his actors with enough space to make an impact. J.J. Totah, for example, steals every scene he's in as a flamboyantly gay tween who at one point performs a wildly inappropriate drag show to politely perplexed silence."

Most of the critics agreed that it was Molly Shannon's performance as David's afflicted mother that gives the film its gravitas. Watson in Slant points out: "Shannon's performance locks into the film's most fully realized theme: that even the grueling misery of dying cannot rob you of a sense of humor if you don't allow it to." And Chang in Variety seconds Watson's comments: "Even with her face pale and gaunt, and her head shaved, the character possesses a luminosity that seems to glow all the more brightly as her condition worsens, as if in defiance of the cancer's steady onslaught."

A.A. Dowd argues that Other People has great value in its frank treatment of the effect on people who must deal with an afflicted cancer victim: "it's at its best when getting into the nitty-gritty of coping with the disease—from an uncomfortably frank discussion of burial arrangements to the family serving as interpreter for a fading Joanne, repeating everything she croaks out in a hoarse whisper to those outside their immediate circle."

Perhaps the most revelatory scene in Other People is David's supermarket melt-down. Everything that's been bothering him including his father's rejection of his sexuality, his recent break-up with his gay lover, rejection of his script by TV network professionals and especially his mother's sad decline, adds to the inevitable moment when he breaks down and blurts out he's a "good person." The sub-text to that statement of course is "why am I a victim?" as well as "why am I not successful?"

There is something very self-pitying about David and he evinces a clear lack of insight into his situation. Indeed he's a "good person" in the way he takes care of his dying mother. But his desire for success is forced—not only does he try too hard but he's too focused on himself. Hence, David ends up the least interesting character in Kelly's narrative, not only for his self-pity but his narcissism as well.

As some critics have argued, Other People's main character is in effect too much of a sad sack to interest us. If there's any redemption, it's in the portraits of some of the supporting players, especially Molly Shannon as a cancer victim who brings both mirth and a quiet dignity to a most difficult role.