Marriage can be beautiful, boring, transcendent, and tiresome—at the same time. For better or worse, writer/director/star Lake Bell’s latest comedy captures matrimonial schizophrenia in a perfect, formal package. When an unhinged documentary filmmaker (Dolly Wells) looks for unhappy couples in a small Florida town, she encounters a web of interconnected sad-sacks with varying degrees of relational difficulty: Alice (Bell) and Noah (Ed Helms) struggle to save their business and start a family; Alice’s sister, Fanny (Amber Heard), is an aimless, millennial hippie in an open relationship with Zander (Wyatt Cenac); Harvey and Cybil (Paul Reiser and Mary Steenburgen) don’t know why they’ve stayed together for decades. Unfortunately, the documentary conceit dithers early on, leaving this terrific cast to chase unfunny subplots. Despite attempts at rekindling the initial spark (like a rousing montage set to Heart’s “Alone”), I felt duped by a flaky, focus-free movie that I hadn't signed up for.
Welcome to Kicking the Seat!
Ian Simmons launched Kicking the Seat in 2009, one week after seeing Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia. His wife proposed blogging as a healthier outlet for his anger than red-faced, twenty-minute tirades (Ian is no longer allowed to drive home from the movies).
The Kicking the Seat Podcast followed three years later and, despite its “undiscovered gem” status, Ian thoroughly enjoys hosting film critic discussions, creating themed shows, and interviewing such luminaries as Gaspar Noé, Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Seimetz, and Richard Dreyfuss.
Ian is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. He also has a family, a day job, and conflicted feelings about referring to himself in the third person.