Nigel and I went to see Igby Goes Down today. Be warned that this review might contain spoilers. It is an interesting, if rather depressing, insight into the life of a rebellious New York teenager. Igby, played by Kieran Culkin, is the second son to a dying mother and a father who suffers from schizophrenia and has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The family is well to do, despite the breakdown of the father. Whilst Igby’s elder brother, Oliver, is right at home in this upper class atmosphere, graduating top of his class at Prep School and gaining admission to Columbia University, Igby wants no part of it. He has flunked out of every private school on the East Coast, to the ire of his mother. Flashbacks are expertly utilised to create the impression that Igby feels a much deeper attachment to his schizophrenic father than to his dying mother. At least this is the case until the end of the film. In fact, Igby truly hates his mother. But we never really understand just why exactly Igby feels such hate towards her. In my opinion, this was one of the shortcomings of the movie. Igby’s character was not exposed enough for the audience to really get a feeling for why Igby detests his mother so.
Igby starts working for his Godfather, renovating apartments. It is here he meets his Godfather’s mistress, Rachel and promptly falls in love with her. We find out that the girl is an artist and heroine junky who trades sexual favours for accomodation. Thus, we have a strange love triangle between Igby, his Godfather and Rachel. It doesn’t last long, however, because Igby finds another girl, Sookie, a vegetarian hippy type. Igby’s heart is broken when Oliver steals Sookie from him. And thus the plot progresses, played out by a cast of depressed and depressing characters.
Kieran Culkin is the perfect actor for the part of Jason "Igby" Slocumb Jr. He delivers his lines with the dry wit required for his part, and gives a good portrayal of the obviously intelligent but misguided young man that is Igby Slocumb.
On a scale of 1 to 10, this film gets a 7 from me. It was nearly an 8, but I thought a few of the characters were a bit underdone. It was hard to get into the minds of some of the characters, simply because they were not exposed enough. It should have been easy to relate to a rebel like Igby, but it was not.
