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The Plight of the Upper Class “Turtle. Turtle was my best buddy. Till his rifle backfired and blew his face off. We all learned a valuable lesson in weapon maintenance that day…”, Igby Slocumb says nonchalantly to his family over dinner. The dark comedy Igby Goes Down is a great example of a movie that will become a cult classic, because of its independent status and quirky nature. This film will never obtain a large audience, due to the unknown director, independent producers, and controversial topics, however, it is definitely thought-provoking and funny enough to become a cult classic. The characters, storyline, and setting all play a valuable part in making this an effective and poignant film about the American deception of “having it all”. 17-year-old Igby Slocumb is greatly affected by his father’s nervous breakdown, and is not helped by his heartless, pill-popping mother or robotic, young Republican brother. He struggles to find meaning in life, hating the boring, plastic world he was raised in, so he becomes the black sheep of his family. Igby flunks out of every school on the east coast, runs away from military school, and finally drops out and gets his equivalency test, while living with a sexy older woman and her gay roommate in New York. He tries everything from drugs to meaningless sex, and thinks he finds purpose in Sookie Sapperstein, a quirky Jewish girl he met at a party, but it takes the death of his mother to make him realize that being successful is an illusion, and people just have to get by on what they have. The brilliant acting and superb characterization make this movie. They make unattractive characters appealing, and give people a reason to watch a bunch of pretentious snobs. This is where Steers's (sic) script shines, taking figures who could easily descend into trite archetypes -- the obedient brother, the air-head mistress, the cruel girlfriend, the money-bags godfather -- and giving them intriguing angles and idiosyncratic twists.
Approximate Word count = 1272
Approximate Pages = 5.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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