Brad's Status review: A hard to relate to film about first-world problems
BEN STILLER is undergoing a more convincing but far less interesting transformation in Brad’s Status.
Brad's Status needs a much better writer
In actor-director Mike White’s dour indie drama he plays a middle-aged, middle-class American who is suffering an entirely self-inflicted mid-life crisis.
His intelligent, charming, 17-year-old son Troy (Austin Abrams) is a brilliant musician who is about to go to Harvard; his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) is caring, forgiving, and almost angelically supportive and he has a fulfilling job as the head of a charity.
But Brad isn’t happy with his status.
According to his social media feeds, his old university friends (Michael Sheen, Jemaine Clement and Luke Wilson) are luckier, happier and a lot wealthier.
Ben Stiller's sad-sack act doesn't work this time
White’s previous gig was writing last year’s dire children’s film The Emoji Movie and his first self-directed drama is one big, frowny, face.
Stiller played similar characters in Noah Baumbach’s painfully funny black comedies Greenberg and While We’re Young but his sad-sack schtick demands a far better writer than Mike White.
His incessant voice-over is distracting and witless, his lead character is dull and his first-world problems are almost impossible to relate to.
White’s previous gig was writing last year’s dire children’s film The Emoji Movie and his first self-directed drama is one big, frowny, face.