Igby Goes Down
Tags: comedy, dark, murder, flashback, psychedelic, storytelling

Plot synopsis:
Jason "Igby" Slocumb, Jr. (Kieran Culkin) is a misanthropic 17-year-old boy, rebelling against the oppressive world of his strict East Coast "old money" family. His schizophrenic father, Jason (Bill Pullman), has been committed to an institution. Igby fears he will eventually suffer a mental breakdown like his father. His mother, Mimi (Susan Sarandon), is self-absorbed and distant. Igby mockingly describes his ambitious older brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) as a fascist or, alternatively, a Young Republican, and that he studies "neo-fascism" (economics) at Columbia University.
Igby figures there must be a better life out there, and he sets out to find it, rebelling against his family at every opportunity. After happily flunking out of several prep schools, he ends up in a brutal military academy where he gets beaten by his classmates. After escaping and spending time in a Chicago hotel courtesy of his mother's credit card, Igby is sent to New York for the summer to his godfather D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum).
While working construction for D.H., Igby first encounters Rachel (Amanda Peet), his godfather's heroin-addicted trophy mistress. Rather than return to school, he escapes into the bohemian underworld of Manhattan, hiding out with Rachel and her performance artist friend Russel (Jared Harris). Eventually, he and Rachel have sex. After being suspected and scolded by D.H., he then hooks up with terminally bored, part-time lover, Sookie (Claire Danes), only for her to later leave him for Ollie.
Despite seeming cold and distant, Mimi is not unaffected by her rebellious son. She describes Igby's conception as an act of animosity and it shouldn't be a surprise that his life follows the same course. His name is explained as a family in-joke. As a child, he would blame his toy bear, Digby, for things he had done, mispronouncing it as "Igby". In order to get him to take responsibility for his actions, his family would call him Igby whenever he lied.
Igby is informed by Russell that his mother Mimi is dying from breast cancer and so he returns to see her. She has arranged to commit suicide with help from Ollie, who feeds her poisoned strawberry yogurt.
Before she dies, Mimi makes a final revelation, casually inquiring of Igby, "I take it you know that D.H. is your father?" Igby leaves for Los Angeles in an attempt to finally make a clean break by getting 3,000 miles away from his family.

Review: Every player is at the top of their game, from Kieran Culkin to Amanda Peet, Jeff Goldblum to Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman to Claire Danes to Ryan Phillippe.
They're obviously guided by a director who knows how to work with an ensemble to get an overall tone.Igby is the anti Ferris Beuhler - a smart wanna be who's wise mouth and attitude usually piss off those around him - his mother, his brother, his godfather.
While both films share these elements, they are very different in that I considered The Royal Tennenbaums to be mostly a comedy; while Igby's few comedic moments are so dark one almost feels badly for chuckling.
(What is more traditional than a disapproving mother who is more concerned about herself than anyone else in the family, a clinically schizophrenic father, and two brothers: the elder a narcissist (if not practical) and the younger, a rebellious 16 year old who is forced to change schools more often than most of us change our Glade Plug-Ins.) It is about family in any sense: Friends, strangers, anyone Igby encounters and tries to gain acceptance from.
Culkin's Igby, who looks like a waifish Harry Potter without the `imp factor', is an extremely conflicted character.
I'm not entirely sure who I would recommend this film to, but if you are looking for a thought-provoking drama with some great acting, dialogue and story line I would definitely check this movie out.
He's outstanding, the best thing in the movie - which given the quality of his peers, such as a sinister and agenda-ridden Jeff Goldblum, a monstrous and hierarchial Susan Sarandon, a confused and tortured Bill Pullman and a squeaky clean upstart in Ryan Phillippe, is no mean feat at all.Performances are uniformly excellent, the story involving, and the themes well explored.Well done all round..
Also like the aforementioned film, this movie's soundtrack was so well picked and so well executed, I was overwhelmed.Burr Steers, a first time screenwriter and director?
I'm very pleased to see other reviewers comparing Kieran Culkin's character Jason/Igby to The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield - while watching the film I was thinking the same thing, much to writer/director Burr Steers' credit.
This is THE Social Commentary movie I have been waiting to see for a long time now - fearless, witty, arch, poignant without being sentimental, and, best of all, the characters are not one-dimensional, they all live and breathe and we feel the agony they are suffering behind their socially privileged masks.
Culkin is especially brilliant (and so sad, with his Harry Potter scarf - a young wizard without any magic), but everyone shines here - Sarandon, Pullman, Danes, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff "how-can-I-be-any-creepier" Goldblum, and of course Jared Harris, who positively reeks eccentricity without even having to open his mouth (but when he does, it's always good too).
But his brother is becoming a romantic rival or Sookie and when Igby crashes in D.H's fancy Manhattan apartment, in which Rachel is taking residence, he becomes entangled in an ever more downward spiral.First-time director Burr Steers, who also scripted, filled this one with some very smart, observative and acidic dialog, and Kiera Culkin shows he can carry a film with a very good performance.
While the supporting cast (Jeff Goldblum, Susan Sarandon, Ryan Phillipe and Claire Danes) are predictably good, he turns in an electrifying performance.
I read an IMDb user's review earlier which said something like "Igby is the modern-day Holden Caufield." That's the praise the creators of this film were looking for, I'm sure, but it's also far too on the nose.
It felt almost like they wanted to make a film adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye, couldn't get the rights, and said "forget it then; we'll come up with something ourselves".The mimetic protagonist made the story as a whole hard for me to swallow, but to be fair, there are plenty of unique characters in Igby Goes Down.
Writer/director Steers has created a provocative serio-comedy that gets a great boost from supporting roles from Sarandon (although she's played many mothers before), Pullman, Goldblum, Phillipe, and Claire Danes in a choice pick..
This film had a few nice scenes but I found it hard to swallow that so many people in it thought that Igby was witty and charming.
Why, when the acting was so good, did I fail to care about the characters?I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and the only conclusion that I can come to is that it's hard for me to feel pity for the kinds of characters in the movie.*SPOLIER WARNING* Should I feel bad for a kid who sells drugs because he "needs money," but gets handed wads of hundred dollar bills by his godfather practically every time that they meet?
I really wanted to see more of what had happened between his non-biological father and his mother.Basically, what it boiled down to is that I didn't give a crap about Igby, or anyone else in the movie.
However, if you aren't sucked into the movie after about thirty minutes or so, it's probably not going to happen, so don't stick around like I did, thinking that it'll surely turn around at any moment..
(It's well time that the film industry cashes out of the Culkin family, they made money, great, move on and remember the good times.) Kieran Culkin simply cannot carry this film, even though it is light-weight fare, and does not require much from any of the actors.The plot follows the exploits of Igby, a spoiled recalcitrant brat, who upset with his life escapes to New York.
Throw a bunch of weird familial characters at a coming of age movie, and Igby Goes Down is the result.To compare it to Catcher In The Rye is a sin; the eponymous character has none of the real angst of Holden Caulfield, and the hotchpotch of miscreants and socialites Igby meets along the way are as dull and linear as in any film I can think of.The comedy moments aren't funny enough, the sad moments aren't tearful enough, and any moments of emotional flare are sparse and short lived.If you really can't think of a better way to spend 90 minutes, by all means give it a go, but don't expect to be philosophically or morally challenged by this film..
Igby is a slacker born to wealth and privilege who spends all his time avoiding any kind of change to the life he hates.This is vaguely like a J.D. Salinger story, as if the screenwriter was trying to emulate his hero almost to the point of plagiarism.
Having many black humor and dramatic situation, it is indeed a good movie, with a great performance of the whole cast, highlighting Kieran Culkin.
The film itself is baldly influenced by J.D. Salinger's `The Catcher In The Rye' with Kieran Culkin playing a rebellious rich kid who goes on the lam from his insane family, particularly his spiteful, domineering mother (Susan Sarandon, who eventually conspires with Steers to resort to her usual technique of making a sympathy play), and hooks up with people populating his godfather Jeff Goldblum's wealthy, art-poseur world, including Amanda Peet (grossly overplaying her stock-in-trade, the selfish bitch), Jared Harris and Claire Danes.
This film is a waste of 2 hours - I had no affinity with the characters and spent the whole movie waiting for something interesting to happen - instead it plodded along from one bad thing happening to Igby to another - and the final breakdown with the mother was ridiculous..
Igby Goes Downsucceeds.Keiran Culkin (who, with each new film surpasses his older brother) is IgbySlocumb, a precocious 17 year old New Yorker, who is desperately trying toescape his everyday life.
Susan Sarandon is Mimi, Igby's self absorbed pill- popping mother, and Bill Pullman is his schizophrenic father Jason.
"Igby goes down" is a dark comedy (or sometimes named bittersweet) and like many other fine (often indie) American movies in this genre the last years it stands out for me as the best one (Garden state, Buffalo '66, confessions of a dangerous mind, ghost world, about schmidt, requiem for a dream, to die for, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, secretary, election, rushmore, donnie darko, lost in translation, American psycho and some others.) They all contain elements of comedy combined with visible, believable drama.
The comedy is not explicit, but reflects more the absurd (corrupted) world in which the modern Western peoples sometimes live in.What I think is great about this movie is that you learn why Igby has become like this.
Igby is actually a normal boy who doesn't care much for the superficialities his family (mother Suasan Sarandon & father Bill Pullman) smothers him with.
In fact, he only cares much for his dad, a mental patient.Igby runs away from school and house and meets some great characters; his real father's heroin junkie mistress (gorgeous Amanada Peet), her transvestite room mate, a slightly older college girl next door who he falls in love with (Claire Danes).
Yeah, Igby is living the life, but like all good things, it comes to an end when reality steps in.
His mother Mimi is a vile pill-popping nutcase (played magnificently by Susan Sarrandon), his brother Ollie is an over-achieving alcoholic, his father Jason is in a mental institution because he can get a little "slippery when schizophrenic", and his exceedingly wealthy money-buckets godfather DH may have a closer connection to Igby than even he realizes.
This is where we see the depth of Igby's character and the brilliance of Kieran Culkin's performance as he attacks her corpse and howls like a wounded animal.
It's not bad, but the critics have a tendency to rate movies on how well they like the cast, not the actual film.
(It should be evident if you notice how many bad actorsslip into good standings because of a bit-part.) I feel that such is the case here, and that they'rerelieved to see Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes(and to asignificantly lesser extent)Jeff Goldblum and Ryan Philippe back in the saddle.I won't give away anything big, but I WILL say that the story's head is in a better place than it's heart, and that the core of this piece is akin to "Terms of Endearment"(the mother-son relationship, only Igby's resolve comes at a harder place in life)There is resolve in the end, but not everything isaccounted for.(Igby asks a rather trying questionof a priest[not what you're thinking]that goesunanswered, both by the priest in his quarters and in the finale.)This brings me to the last, and worst, of its pratfalls.
"Why was I just subjected to that?"Like "The Good Girl," "Igby" draws a lot on Catcher in the Rye. Supposedly the greatest novel of all time, at least for the high school set, Catcher at least had the distinctions of a) being first, and b) being technically brilliant, even if the central character leaves something to be desired.
The dialogue is stolen from "Love Story," characters Rachel (Amanda Peet) and Sookie (Claire Danes) walk through Igby's world by the most contrived of reasons, and the word "humor" would be a gross misrepresentation of anything that happened in this film.Add to this a horrible cast.
Like his films or not, it's hard not to appreciate his style."Igby Goes Down" is the first I have seen that tries to capture Anderson's style.
There are some interesting spins in this movie, as no one is COMPLETELY bad; you feel sympathy for most of the parties (well, except for really good-looking and magnetic Jeff Goldblum, who usually plays a patsy re 'The Big Chill' but is great as a super bad guy in this one.)I don't know how autobiographical this movie is, but military schools' reputations may never be the same.
A drama has to be touching, at least a little, to be effective, but in Steers' script, it made me not feel for the characters, so I couldn't feel anything at the climax.Only Amanda Peet and Jeff Goldblum were able to work with this weak movie.
Are we to laugh off Igby's drug dealing as a humorous consequence of being a confused adolescent?I don't think that people will be studying and talking about this movie in fifty years..
It's a coming of age movie about young Igby, his brother, and his overbearing mother.
A Catcher in the Lie. Boarding school drop-out Kieran Culkin (as Jason "Igby" Slocumb) and his Columbia-educated brother Ryan Phillippe (as Oliver "Ollie" Slocumb) put a plastic bag over the head of their bedridden mother Susan Sarandon (as Mimi), and watch as she suffocates.
Other significant people in his life are vacantly sexy Claire Danes (as Sookie Sapperstein), "godfather" Jeff Goldblum (as D.H. Baines), his junkie lover Amanda Peet (as Rachel), and indeterminate Jared Harris (as Russel)...The interesting thing about the opening is how it sets up Mr. Culkin's character as both physically (via his mother) and mentally (via his father) threatened.
Appearing briefly, the thought-provoking Gore Vidal (as a priest) and the always spot-on Bill Irwin (as a lieutenant) are appreciated.***** Igby Goes Down (5/23/02) Burr Steers ~ Kieran Culkin, Ryan Phillippe, Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes.
The movie was filmed well and has a very bizarre cast of characters.
Asked by a potential girlfriend why he's not in school, he merely says, "Sheer ingenuity", after being kicked out of numerous schools on the east coast and driving his mother (SUSAN SARANDON) and brother (RYAN PHILLIPPE) crazy with his boorish behavior.IGBY GOES DOWN is a smart black comedy that is equal parts depressing and funny at the same time.
Culkin refers to his mother as "the heinous one" and his father (BILL PULLMAN) as a disturbed man who's "in a Maryland home for the befuddled." His girlfriend admits she's been adopted and calls herself "a vanity project of narcissistic parents." That gives you an idea of the flavor of most of the dialog in a story about a boy who ends up just like his father--feeling "a great, great pressure pulling down over him." The story ends with him and his brother cooperating in the demise of their mom--an act of euthanasia--and parting when Culkin leaves for California and a possibly life on the mean streets without a promising future while brother Ryan merely says, "There never was a great deal between us." It's a downer of a comedy but some of it is very effective, thanks largely to the caliber of the performances, all fine.
The movie veers from comedy to tragedy and it's never properly explained why Igby's teenage angst is so out of control and why he tries to alienate everyone around him, but the film is lively and entertaining.
I suppose I thought this character capable of intelligent thought, but unfortunately, the script makes him do two so unfunny things, I can't reveal the horror without blowing the script.Look, I know everyone thinks Freud was wrong about homosexuality's derivation related to weak fathers and strong Ethel Merman like mothers, but this film is set up in such a way that I am convinced that the two brothers could not possibly be straight.
Black comedies are by definition laughs from unexpected sources, but we at least have to like the characters in a film to care about their problems.
My favorite movie ghost world contains the same sort of humor and I think Igby goes down is as great as Ghost World is.
With a schizophrenic father, a self-absorbed, distant mother, and a shark-like young Republican big brother, Igby figures there must be a better life out there, and he sets out to find it.
All the actors did a good job with Claire Danes shining a little more then the others but the film belongs to Kieran Culkin.
However if you're interested in quirky and clever films that are not so much fiction but a close depiction of real life then Igby Goes Down is a must-see.8/10.
Igby Goes Down is one of that rare breed: a coming-of-age movie that's actually pretty good.
This is a deliciously dark comedy that sparkles from beginning to end, with killer lines that you'll be using on your friends and family for days afterwards.Everybody is cast well here; Claire Danes' years off from Hollywood have matured her, Susan Sarandon is wonderfully believable, Jeff Goldblum is brilliant.
Bad move, because the rest of the characters in this film you will find impossible to emphasize with, and about 45 minutes into the movie you'll probably actually be wishing death upon Igby himself.
Igby Goes Down is really a great comedy, but it really only seems that way later when you're thinking about it because a lot of the humor comes from the most painful scenes.
This movie was a great experience, and I would recommend to anyonewho wants to see a good, solid film about growing up, then going down..
This movie is a great first film for Burr Steers.
The performances were all around pretty good, Kieran Culkin, while talented, suffered from a little bit of overacting, but in the end is still very watchable and very entertaining, plus I think that is a criticism you can lay blame on the director/writer, who was actually my main problem with the film.
Back to the film, I would have liked to see more of Ryan Phillippe and Bill Pullman's characters, and maybe a little more development on Susan Sarandon's relationship with Igby.
First time director Burr Steers delivers quite an impressive debut film that's similar to Catcher in the Rye in story and close to Wes Anderson in feel.
With a solid cast led by the fantastic Kieran Culkin (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) as the perpetually delinquent Igby, this film is filled with characters that are hard to identify with and even harder to like, but in a rare twist are interesting to watch.
Kieran Culkin has the role of his young lifetime, and he is supported by a superb cast: Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman, Celia Weston, Amanda Peet, Clare Danes, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff Goldblum and Jared Harris.