Max Greenfield! Aubrey Plaza! Jason Ritter! About Alex , which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is an updated version of The Big Chill that’s a great excuse to enjoy television talent in a new way.
Jami Saunders
With a cast that includes Max Greenfield, Jane Levy, Aubrey Plaza, and Jason Ritter, About Alex feels a little like it's bringing to life an epic crossover fan fiction involving everyone's favorite television shows. And though the actors that make up the ensemble aren't playing to their comedy types, they do carry over all the accrued good will needed to make About Alex, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, a thoroughly enjoyable if familiar reunion dramedy.
Directed by first-time filmmaker (and Parenthood writer) Jesse Zwick, About Alex is a self-conscious update of The Big Chill (“This is like one of those '80s movies!” exclaims one character) that feels as comfortable to sink into as an overstuffed sofa. The movie's seven Yale grads gather in the wake of a tragedy involving one of their own, the titular Alex (Ritter), who, unlike his namesake in the 1983 movie, has survived his suicide attempt. Soon thereafter, he finds his old college friends descending on his rambling house in upstate New York to spend time with him over the long weekend, and to catch up after drifting apart.
Andre Lascaris
There's Ben (Nate Parker), the aspiring writer to whom Alex is closest, his girlfriend Siri (Maggie Grace), anxious lawyer Sarah (Plaza), and caustic doctoral candidate Josh (Greenfield), who gets most of the best lines in the film as the only one in the group willing to talk about what happened while everyone else tries to tiptoe around it. (“If you wanted to see all of us, you could have just shot us an email!” he jokingly snaps at Alex when he arrives fresh from the hospital.) Max Minghella plays Isaac, an investment banker living in San Francisco and dating the younger Kate (Jane Levy), who comes with him only to realize she's stepping into the middle of years of shared history.
Crowding into the house for a few days of walking in the woods, drinking, getting stoned, and hanging out (while ignoring the traces of blood left from Alex's attempted wrist-slitting in the downstairs bathroom), past romances and resentments naturally emerge. About Alex does a nice job of letting different combinations of its characters come together to surface long-held crushes, friendship imbalances, and fuck-buddy habits, tracing the way who these people were as college students has carried over into adulthood. Greenfield and Plaza are a highlight as Josh and Sarah evoke touches of his Schmidt on New Girl and her April Ludgate on Parks and Rec while coming across as brittle and more worn down by the directions their lives have taken. They bicker and sleep together and share a past that's scarred Sarah in ways she's only just now starting to be able to talk about.
by Amazon Auto Links
The Bittersweet Reunion Movie That Shows A New Side Of Your Favorite Television Actors
#MaxGreenfield, #AubreyPlaza, #JasonRitter
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