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Film
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Imaginary Heroes
It’s hard to decide which is more impressive: that Dan Harris has uncorked a masterfully restrained directorial debut in-between writing X2: X-Men United and Superman, or that he has done so at the tender age of 25.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
By Brett Buckalew
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Jeff Vespa/Wireimage.com
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Writer-director Harris
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Whatever it may say about the American pop-cultural consciousness, some of the most unforgettable films and TV series of the past 25 years have been concerned with the shifting dynamics within seriously dysfunctional families. Whether portrayed as devastating tragedy (Ordinary People, Magnolia) or exaggerated, gut-busting comedy (The Royal Tenenbaums, TV’s The Simpsons and Arrested Development), the dramatic conflicts that weigh upon some very anti-Rockwellian American clans has exerted undeniable power and fascination.
What’s so remarkable about writer Dan Harris’ directorial debut Imaginary Heroes is not just that it effortlessly steers a middle course between unflinching gloom and cathartic humor in its study of an emotionally chaotic suburban family, but that it’s insightful enough to celebrate the very notion of an imperfect family. So, while it may be hard to imagine any work matching the impact of some of the titles just mentioned, what makes Harris’ film unique, and worthy of mention alongside them, is its wondrous generosity of spirit, and its engagingly lifelike narrative flow.
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Sony Pictures Classics
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Oscar worthy performance
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Eschewing the forward momentum of direct, linear, storytelling, Harris instead uses a more episodic structure that often recalls the more subtle pleasures of the literary short story form, or, more pointedly, the way both mundane and momentous moments of everyday existence run side-by-side. Immeasurably aiding this loose manner of conveying the ups and downs encountered by the Travises (or “Travai,” as one character pluralizes them), the family at the film’s center, is the way many scenes register as intricately funny and sad at once; as in life, separating the two emotional responses can be almost impossible.
However, it’s an unambiguously catastrophic event that opens the film, as Matt Travis (Kip Pardue), a school-champion swimmer with Olympic-level promise, commits suicide. At Matt’s funeral, we already begin to learn how members of his family cope - not just with his death, but with the constant challenges of life. His mother, Sandy (Sigourney Weaver), chooses to view bitter reality with caustic, knowing wit and an unapologetically sharp tongue, while his father, Ben (Jeff Daniels), is entombed in a silence that isn’t so much stoic as creepily zombie-like. His younger brother, Tim (Emile Hirsch) reels from a confusion hidden by flip nonchalance.
As the movie progresses, we begin to see the forces that wedge the surviving Travises apart. Ben acts more and more like a stranger in his own house, mourning what was clearly his favored son; Sandy, extending her ‘So what?’ brazenness further, indulges in frequent pot smoking; and Tim, who carries around a journal he guards with intense devotion, begins to weigh what lies beyond high-school graduation, and parties with his wild neighbor and best friend, Kyle (Ryan Donowho).
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Sony Pictures Classics
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Best film work in 20 years
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Miraculously, though, we also see the unbreakable bonds that keep this family together. Choosing Tim as the story’s central figure, Harris deftly merges the related genres of the family tragicomedy and the coming-of-age film, to authentically show how a young adult’s very self is formed by the interactions he has with his mother and father, and how the love that circulates within those interactions can feel like enough to ensure a bright future.
Having co-written much bigger genre films (X2: X-Men United, the upcoming Superman movie), Harris may surprise some with how quiet and extraordinarily observant he is as a filmmaker here. But, in a way, his very age (a mere 25-years-old) makes him an ideal person to bring the story of someone like Tim to the screen.
Countless moments - Ben ordering Tim to play piano at a holiday party by saying, ‘Show ‘em you’re good at somethin’, or Tim suffering a bully-inflicted bloody nose in front of his crush - ring with such truth that they feel lived. Whether or not Harris identifies with Tim, his honesty and attention to detail in fleshing out a boy so uncertain, sensitive, and intelligent - so singular - give the film the beautiful, intimate feel of an unmistakably personal project.
As Tim, Hirsch delivers and then some on the promise he exhibited in otherwise unwatchable fare like The Girl Next Door and The Emperor’s Club. Possessing a charisma that is simultaneously soft and rough, and blessed with the ability to movingly embody a character’s quicksilver emotional shifts, Hirsch is clearly a young actor in it for the long haul.
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Sony Pictures Classics
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Rising young star Hirsch
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Challenged by the film’s most difficult role, Daniels gives his shrewdest performance since Terms of Endearment. He is able to make Ben a sympathetic figure in spite of his extreme remoteness. But it’s Weaver who dominates the proceedings. Outspoken, liberated, tough yet brittle, Sandy is one of the most realistic maternal figures to hit the screen lately, and any actress’ dream. Weaver runs with it, bringing such intelligence, energy, and complexity to the role that it should be a crime she hasn’t received but a whisper of Oscar buzz for her work.
‘You’re too much like me. People like us, they don’t fit in everywhere,’ Weaver’s Sandy confides to Tim at one point in the film. It’s a telling line, because Imaginary Heroes is such a small film, driven more by the joys and trials of life, and the mysteries of death, than by any inorganic three-act structure, which means it doesn’t fit in with the current moviegoing climate. In fact, with its emotions so relatable, it’s the very opposite of an escapist lark; it requires viewer introspection.
And yet, for anyone ready to overlook its barely-there flaws (a third act revelation flirts with soap-opera luridness) and to coast on its warm, comforting waves of wit and pathos, it surely counts as one this busy season’s can’t-miss cinematic attractions.
Editor’s Note: Imaginary Heroes opened in Los Angeles and New York on Friday, December 17th, for a one-week Oscar qualifying run. It will re-open on a wider basis in the future.
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