{"id":652,"date":"2017-01-23T02:41:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T02:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/?p=652"},"modified":"2017-02-02T02:45:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T02:45:42","slug":"lemon-review-a-bizarre-comedy-of-confused-people-from-janicza-bravo-and-brett-gelman-sundance-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/lemon-review-a-bizarre-comedy-of-confused-people-from-janicza-bravo-and-brett-gelman-sundance-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Lemon\u2019 Review: A Bizarre Comedy of Confused People From Janicza Bravo and Brett Gelman \u2014 Sundance 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"indiewireEver since her 2011 short film \u201cEat,\u201d filmmaker Janicza Bravo has presented a baffling vision of absurd circumstances that defy simple categorization. Throughout subsequent shorts such as \u201cGregory Go Boom\u201d and \u201cMan Rots From the Head\u201d (both of which star Michael Cera, in the former as a suicidal paraplegic), Bravo\u2019s peculiar style maintains an unnerving quality that feels like cringe-comedy but often takes a sharp turn into odd and alarming glimpses of angry, pathetic characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cLemon,\u201d her feature-length debut, continues that indelible tendency with its deranged portrait of a self-involved man (Brett Gelman, the director\u2019s husband and co-writer) so ruthlessly unpleasant that everything he does contributes to the destruction of his life. Enhanced by a number of notable comedic actors entering uncharted terrain, it\u2019s the kind of movie that makes you laugh and flinch in equal measures, and despite some messier twists, never ceases to move in surprising directions.<\/p>\n

Bravo\u2019s eccentric approach can be so disorienting and unpleasant that it\u2019s sometimes difficult to appreciate the sheer gall of it, and she wastes no time kickstarting the wackiness in \u201cLemon.\u201d A slow-moving opening shot reveals the messy apartment inhabited by Isaac (Gelman), a frumpy, bearded acting teacher who lives with his blind girlfriend Ramona (Judy Greer), whom he pushes around like property while dropping pompous lines about his superior intellect. Elsewhere, he attempts to rehearse a hilariously ill-conceived production of \u201cThe Seagull,\u201d in which he mostly heaps praise on hyperbolic leading man Alex (a curly-haired Cera) while condescending to his female counterpart in a series of long-winded performances. Despite his best efforts, Isaac fails to bond with Alex, and eventually scares him off; it doesn\u2019t take long for Ramona to follow suit, leaving him in utter desolation.<\/p>\n

Genuinely strange and surprising at every moment, \u201cLemon\u201d stumbles through some of its early meandering vignettes, but crystallizes its approach during a prolonged second act when Isaac pays a visit to his eccentric Jewish family for a bizarre Passover seder. The sequence features a range of familiar faces to complement Gelman\u2019s deadpan comic timing: Rhea Perlman and Fred Melamed play Isaac\u2019s parents, while Martin Starr echoes Gelman\u2019s monotone as his brother, and Shiri Appleby (currently starring on Lifetime\u2019s \u201cUnreal\u201d) plays his neurotic sister. At the end of a night dominated by dinner table bickering, they gather around the piano to sing the hysterical upbeat tune \u201cA Million Matzoh Balls,\u201d while Isaac sits nearby and mouths the words, wearing a vacant stare. Woody Allen by way of Luis Bu\u00f1uel, it\u2019s a first-rate surrealist set piece, among the handful of outrageous moments that sustain the elevated lunacy in Bravo\u2019s sightlines throughout.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker excels at presenting uncompromising characters and magnifying their worst traits, and Gelman\u2019s an ideal vessel for her peculiar approach. He\u2019s never pleasant to watch, but remains a constant object of morbid fascination.<\/p>\n

Somehow, Isaac manages to charm the soft-spoken Jamaican-American Cleo (Nia Long), whom he meets at a commercial shoot, and launches into a newfound obsession. The essence of Bravo\u2019s boundary-pushing storytelling arrives in a pivotal scene in which Isaac masturbates at home while chanting \u201cyour favorite name\u201d as a fantasy version of Cleo whispers \u201cIsaac\u201d again and again. Later, when the real-life version takes an inexplicable liking to him, it sets the stage for a climactic cookout in which Isaac makes a clumsy attempt to bond with her family and ends up insulting them instead. Ending with a prolonged scatological punchline worthy of John Waters, \u201cLemon\u201d leads to no grand epiphany or explication of its themes, content to merely hover in Isaac\u2019s discontent.<\/p>\n

Like her contemporary Rick Alverson (\u201cEntertainment,\u201d \u201cThe Comedy\u201d), Bravo doesn\u2019t shy from the extremes of alienation and despair, nor the way the expression of those sentiments can lead to jarring punchline. Not every high-concept joke lands, but she keeps punching away anyway, and there\u2019s an undeniable twisted poetry to the ongoing assault.<\/p>\n

Grade: B
\n\u201cLemon\u201d premiered in the NEXT section at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.<\/p>\n

View this article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since her 2011 short film \u201cEat,\u201d filmmaker Janicza Bravo has presented a baffling vision of absurd circumstances that defy simple categorization. Throughout subsequent shorts such as \u201cGregory Go Boom\u201d and \u201cMan Rots From the Head\u201d (both of which star Michael Cera, in the former as a suicidal paraplegic), Bravo\u2019s peculiar style maintains an unnerving
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