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Lymelife (DVD)
Year: 2008
Rating: MA
Director: Derick Martini
Cast: Alec Baldwin, Rory Culkin, Jill Hennessy, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon, Emma Roberts
Release Date: August 11, 2010
Distributor: Anchor Bay
The Film: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5A darkly comical ensemble piece about teenage angst and family dynamics.
Lymelife centres on 15-year-old Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin), a sensitive teen, whose dysfunctional family has reached breaking point. His uptight mum, Brenda (Jill Hennessy) puts up a brave front while his big brother, Jimmy (Kieran Culkin), is about to be shipped back to the military, and his real estate father, Mickey (Alec Baldwin), has an affair with his assistant, Melissa (Cynthia Nixon) who has her own set of problems. Her husband Charlie (Timothy Hutton) has been wasting away with Lyme disease which has left him despondent to life. Meanwhile Scott has been pining away for Melissa and Charlie's sassy but sullen-mouthed daughter, Adrianna (Emma Roberts).
The agonies of adolescence - particularly for teens living in soul-sucking suburbia - have been served up so many times on screen that it would be easy for Lymelife to seem recycled, but it doesn't. Director Derick Martini shades his characters with complexity and endows the film with a sly, dark sense of humour which keeps audiences on their toes. However, it's Rory Culkin's performance which really makes this film compelling. He plays his character with a crushing mix of arrogance, sensitivity and raw pain which cuts right through the offbeat humour of the film, investing it with a real slab of humanity.
