The poster quote tells us to “Think Woody Allen meets Wes Anderson” (Eric Bogosian’s deadpan narration is more The Royal Tenenbaums than Manhattan) but it’s the dyspeptic spirit of early Noah Baumbach that hangs most heavily over this sardonic 70s-inflected comedy. Jason Schwartzman is narcissistic writer Philip Lewis Friedman, variously (and accurately) described by his acquaintances as “a baby and an asshole”, “a cruel, miserable person”, and “selfish and unsentimental” – the last intended as a compliment. Confounded by the publication of his second novel, Philip decamps to the country retreat of author-mentor Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce, superbly obnoxious), leaving behind his long-suffering girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss). “I hope this will be good for us, but especially me,” declares Philip as he waltzes out the door, eager to join Ike in a Philip Roth-style “infinitely replenishing prism of regret”, swapping misogynist platitudes and wallowing in “the innate ineffability of human disappointment”.
Writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s self-consciously wordy third feature (after Impolex and The Color Wheel) is overburdened with such drolleries, so it’s a relief when the narrative abandons its verbose antiheroes and turns instead to Moss’s silently expressive face, which speaks volumes. Sean Price Williams’s smudgy hand-held cinematography yearns for a lost age of Allen and Cassavetes, while the clutter of vinyl and typewriters evokes the ironic hipster retro-chic of While We’re Young. Perry certainly isn’t afraid to make his artists convincingly unlikable (when a cat enters the narrative, you half expect it to be pursued by a moaning Llewyn Davis) but occasionally he gives them too much rope, indulging rather than piercing their poisonous solipsism, sardonic laughter turning to irritation.
