A good movie

Since this movie had been very well received, I was quite eager to check it out. The funny thing was that I ended up watching it with my brother while he was visiting me. Sure, technically, the two characters were not brothers, they were cousins, but they were practically acting like brothers. Furthermore, my brother and I are half-French, half-Dutch, him living in France and me living in the Netherlands so our complex roots is a big part of our identity, at least, it’s definitely for me, so what these two guys were going through really intrigued me. Concerning Jesse Eisenberg, this movie was indeed quite an impressive step-up as a director. His first movie. ‘When You Finish Saving the World’, was a solid drama but there was some stuff didn’t really work. Here, he basically focused once again on only two characters which seemed to be his specialty somehow but it worked so much better though. Above all, these two guys were just so complex and fascinating, right now, that’s where Eseinberg’s talent as a storyteller can be found. Of course, the one who stole the show here was Kieran Culkin who even won an Academy Award for his performance. And, indeed, Culkin, who once started in the shadow of his super famous brother Macauley, had become quite a strong actor and he was quite spellbinding here, delivering the most charming and obnoxious guy in the world (how is it even possible?). I actually finished ‘Succession’ recently, which was really brilliant, even better than this movie as a matter of fact, and, to be honest, I did feel that the two characters played by Culkin were actually slightly too similar but it was a minor grip though. Still, I could see so much possibility and also so much pain in Benji, it was rather heartbreaking. If you would put him side by side with what his grandmother went though and still managed to achieve, it made him actually even sadder and even more pathetic. Obviously, Eisenberg didn’t end up with the juicy role (he actually contemplated playing Benji at some point) but he should be praised as well though. Indeed, even though David did have a steady job and a seemingly lovely family (the one and probably only thing which really seemed to bring him happiness), like Benji, he still seemed to be a major loser though with so massive anxiety and some major difficulties to connect with other people. Above all, his constant fascination and resentment towards Benji was so well handled and once again quite fascinating to behold. Basically, Eisenberg delivered here some massive losers barely capable to function in this cold hard world but they were both so complex and so interesting, it was some very strong stuff. It’s too bad that the movie eventually didn’t have much else to offer and, especially the other characters were barely developed at all. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t a real home-run yet, Eisenberg is definitely getting closer though and the damned thing was actually quite fascinating.

7/10