About Alex (2014) Reviews

• Nice Looking Unimaginative Drama/Audition

  meaninglessbark2015-07-23

  The worst thing about About Alex is that it's not interesting. The film is pretty much like any other drama dealing with this sort of mid- young life crisis scenario. The film looks great and is fairly well acted. The script is unimaginative and cringe inducing, but it's now worse that what one encounters on TV dramas when Things Get Serious. If you're looking for a mindless drama full of good looking people, sets, and locations About Alex would be an OK choice. The characters are all clichés and particularly seem to be the sort of people a young writer trying to be serious comes up with. The characters are mostly horrible people, the sort you enjoy seeing die in a slasher film. (Spoiler alert: That sadly doesn't happen.) The most interesting character is Alex, the guy whose attempted suicide is the catalyst for the story (though "story" is a bit of a stretch). Watching Alex's self centered, shallow friends complain and posture made me wonder if he'd had better friends would Alex have ever been in a suicidal state.

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• Guy attempts suicide, his narcissistic buddies self indulgently deal with their own "problems"

  ArchonCinemaReviews2014-08-15

  Five college friends and a plus one physically come together to watch a friend after he tries to commit suicide but in all other regards they spend the majority of the weekend egocentrically delving into their own unresolved self-generated baggage. It is hard for a film, when it's basically a remake pretending not to be because this time the suicide victim isn't a victim but an attemptee but is hypocritically self-aware and gives homage to its predecessor, to do what it wants authentically without resembling a rip-off. And, fair warning, I have seen The Big Chill, and unintentionally watched it again a week before watching About Alex. From the get-go you know to expect self-indulgent intellectualisms but About Alex is nothing but pretentious ramblings, giving it a loathsome hipsterly quality. The atmosphere of the entire movie is bordering on combative as they angrily banter through the tension. Maybe this was a deliberate decision from writer/director Jesse Zwick; to put a mirror to the disjointed self absorbed nature of the generation and act as a representation and critique of the Facebook age. One would think that people coming together to help another through the days immediately following a suicide attempt would be kind and loving but for the most of the movie you forget they were even friends. The acting is good and roles fully formed, of which Jane Levy and Max Greenfield are most successful, but they can not save their faulted characters. The directing and composition of shots was uninspired, average, and literal. There is an art to telling a story without having it plainly done with the characters' dialogue and that is completely missing from About Alex. This is evident from the very beginning when Zwick decides to waste five minutes showing: the suicide attempt, everyone getting the call about the suicide attempt and making their arrangements to go and deal with the suicide attempt. Instead he could have saved five minutes, had everyone somberly encounter one another, leaving the dialogue as-is where the true subject for being together is implied and pussyfooted around and then cut to the one friend left at the cabin as he tries to clean the bloodstained bathtub. All conversations between two characters are over the shoulder framed close-ups that cut back and forth as they talk to one another. I wanted to like this movie, the trailer had me so hopeful and the cast is sublime but About Alex is masturbatory and decidedly not The Big Chill of our generation. Check out our website for more movie and television reviews!

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• Another Big Chill

  SnoopyStyle2016-07-02

  Alex (Jason Ritter) attempts to kill himself in his family home. His college friends gather to visit him. Ben (Nate Parker) and Siri (Maggie Grace) are married and facing difficult issues. Josh (Max Greenfield) is the malcontent who wants to confront Alex about his suicide attempt. Sarah (Aubrey Plaza) is tired of her job. Isaac (Max Minghella) brings his young girlfriend Kate (Jane Levy) who used to work for him. This is basically a reworking of The Big Chill with some interesting actors from the new generation. I really don't want take away points for copying by new filmmaker Jesse Zwick. The biggest change is the lack of popular music. Nobody is dancing with their breakfast in this one. The best aspect is someone like Plaza stretching out a little. She shows that she can be a very compelling dramatic actress. This has some of my favorite actors around in a familiar movie setting.

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• Blatant Plagiarism

  contactsteverogers2015-04-01

  This movie, About Alex, is such a copy/rip-off of The Big Chill, I honestly don't know how the Screen Writers Guild allows Jesse Zwick to pass this off as an original screenplay. Obviously, he changed the characters and dialog to update to the 21st century, but he has stolen outright so many elements from The Big Chill that there should at least be an acknowledgment, "Based on the Motion Picture..." like there are on other movies that rework original ideas for modern movies (e.g. The Evil Dead). In The Big Chill, the character who commits suicide and inspires the reunion is Alex; in this version, there is also a suicidal character named Alex, though he is unsuccessful in his suicide. One of the characters in About Alex has a younger girlfriend not originally part of the group and she feels awkward around the others - there is a similar character in The Big Chill. Two of the characters hook up after many years, there is an obligatory dance sequence, a pot smoking scene, etc. All of this is straight out of The Big Chill. At one point in About Alex, Aubrey Plaza says something to the effect of "This is like one of those movies in the 80s...". I've seen this same contrivance in other movies used as some sort of way to excuse the fact that the filmmakers have borrowed heavily from an earlier work, but personally I don't believe this is a way out from plagiarism. I know people like to quote, "plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery," but is is still plagiarism. Maybe this would have been somewhat excusable if writer/director Zwick actually had something interesting to say and was able to formulate a movie that actually spoke to people. But instead, he just goes through the predictable motions of creating characters that are so redundant that they are now virtually stereotypes (the suicidal aspiring actor, the blocked writer, etc.) and having them speak a lot of trite "socially pertinent" conversation. I get the impression Zwick just made a list of all the so-called relevant issues of today's 20/30-somethings - e.g. technology, anti-depressants, lack of good pop music - and then planned his scenes accordingly. The end result is a script that is lazy and tepid and does nothing to stand out from all the other movies dealing with these same issues.

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• The Lesser Chill

  crispin_132015-10-12

  I would like to start by saying that the dialogue was—for the most part—well written, the characters were good, and the actors were really good. It sounds like a good movie right? Well, it would have been if it hadn't all been done before. I mean REALLY ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE. The Big Chill was the aftermath of a suicide in a group of college friends. The same thing here except he didn't succeed. Both characters are even named Alex! Several of the characters are carbon copies of Big Chill characters. One of the characters in About Alex is SO similar to a character in The Big Chill that they even dressed him the same right down to the horn rimmed glasses and THEN went out and found the actor that most resembled the original—Jeff Goldblum —cast member!! It was laughable! I've never experienced anything like this before. Some of the conversations were direct lifts as well regarding music of eras past. One cast member even refers to movies from the eighties. Unbelievable! The only way to logically explain it is that someone (the writer? the director?) wanted to remake The Big Chill but couldn't get the rights. So the changed as much as they had to for legal reasons. The movie closes with a flashback of the group meeting for the first time. Lawrence Kasdan also fined this scene but cut it from his film. I found myself enjoying that because I had always wanted to see that scene in The Big Chill. By the time I reached the end, the two were almost interchangeable. Oh, one more thing, the group shot at the end of About Alex i the same as the group shot on the cover of the video box for The Big Chill. Unreal.

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