How prefect life is according to Lawrence Kasden

Lawrence Kasden’s reputation as a filmmaker is a pretty solid one from what I have read. He excels at ensemble drama/comedies that focus on particular groups of people dealing with the challenges of everyday life.


I saw The Big Chill (though I am hardly of the member of the generation that was affected by it) as well as Grand Canyon (once again the generation gap) many years ago and I have a vague recollection of a single idea when I think of both films – his story pieces just seem to fit together happily. After spending a Saturday afternoon watching another fairly popular Kasden film, Mumford, I have come to sad conclusion that it took three films to realize – I can’t stand it when a plot just ends happily. Call me an angst whore if you will, but I seriously think that Kasden’s films are more social fantasy rather than drama. The reality in the case of Mumford that is ignored, in my experience, is the fact that life very rarely just ends happily.


I can’t condemn his choice of casts. The talent of these actors keeps the film going despite the sometimes sugary sweet and flimsy script. In particular, I think Loren Dean did a pretty great job carrying the film as the title character as well as deferring to a stellar supporting cast when necessary. The mysterious doctor with an unknown past might be a cliché, but Dean brings a simple charm and warmth that make it obvious to me why people would confess their secrets to him. I wish every town had a shrink like Mumford simply because the character actually LISTENS and allows his patients to make their own conclusions. The fact that he is actually a recovering drug addict and has no formal psychiatric training is something Kasden wants you to keep in mind as the ultimate qualification to help others – he has faced demons and recovered from them.


It’s too bad that the writer didn’t infuse the rest of the characters with the same dimension.
Alfre Woodard is criminally underused in the film and ends up being the clichéd confident of the conflicted doctor and indulging in an unlikely flirtation with Jason Lee – yeah…still haven’t figured that one out yet. Hope Davis’s bland and quiet character that genuinely needs Mumford’s help and ultimately wins his heart bored me to tears. I don’t know whether Kasden made her as washed out and lifeless as a character so Mumford can revive her with his love and attention and if that’s the case…he failed. A couple of other heavy Hollywood hitters including Martin Short and Ted Danson move in and out of the scenes with no real purpose except to show us how dysfunctional people can be even in Prefectville America – not exactly a revolutionary plot move.


I will admit that I selfishly rented this from Netflix for one reason and one reason only – Mary McDonnell. A tremendous fan of the woman’s work, I have to say that she fell into the same trap as Alfre Woodard. Used sparingly throughout the film even though she is really Mumford’s only success story, she ultimately becomes a mass of stereotypes of modern womanhood. The neglected wife of a rich man, she begins to obsessively shop in an effort to exact the control over her life that her husband has robbed her when he made her a trophy wife. Middle aged with no identity beyond wife and mother, it’s nice that Kasden allows us to witness certain changes in her character as the film progresses-- we end with a sexually more adventurous woman on the verge of divorce. He goes with all the classic elements of change: drab colors to bright, plunging necklines and short skirts, red fingernails from plain white.


In the end the clichés did nothing but aggravate me. McDonnell’s Althea ends the film beginning an affair with an overweight pharmacist with a penchant for dime story fantasies – not exactly the match that sends sparks across the screen.


I suppose Kasden is trying to demonstrate with that particular relationship that people are predominantly attracted to people who offer us something we are missing in ourselves or allow us to become someone else. It’s a wonderful sentiment honestly, but one that he just doesn’t give enough weight too throughout the film – the ensemble here hurts rather than helps since no story gets the equal time it actually needs to develop.


Cinematically, Mumford is nothing to write home about. Simple angles, solid editing, a very basic script do nothing to really make the film stand out. The prefect little happy ending left me blank since the plot points were tied up too nicely and neatly. This guy lied to an entire town about what and who he has and they smile and congratulate him as he goes off to jail. Did Netflix mis-catorgoize this film as a comedy? I swear I was watching a fantasy.


I go back to The Big Chill and Grand Canyon as I take Mumford out of the DVD player and return it to its sleeve – those two films were fantasies too. Elaborate social fantasies about fate, circumstance, and the nature of the human condition and they just freaking worked. They worked because those two films were made at two distinct times for two distinct generations who were dealing with the same social and personal issues.

Maybe Mumford was just Kasden’s version of a modern fairytale with some drugs and sex mixed in?

Sorry Mr. Kasden. I’m all for happiness in the world, I’d welcome it in fact, but not in this case. You dumb down your audience by expecting them to just sit back and not question what is happening to the characters you are expecting us to become invested in. Life’s loose ends just don’t come together so simply and people don’t always do what they should and heal themselves.

I guess I’ll stick with the director’s other two films that actually make a social point instead of spoofing it.


Back to the Netflix drawing board.