A Little Help Dir. Michael J. Weithorn

[Secret Handshake; 2011]

Styles: dramedy
Others: Dan In Real Life, City Island

The opening shot in Michael Weithorn’s A Little Help is a closeup of Jenna Fischer from the perspective of a dental patient while a parrot shrieks in the background. It’s a jarring way to start the film. While it could be my vivid memories of extractions and fluoride treatments that make it so unsettling, it’s more likely my reaction to the contrast between the paleness of Fischer’s skin and the brightness of the office halogens. Regardless of my subconscious parallax, it’s a striking way to introduce us to her character, Laura, immediately presenting her in a less than flattering light. And it’s fitting, because Laura is realistically flawed and stuck in a sanitized yet chaotic environment.

Laura is struggling to keep her life together. She’s the mother of incorrigible David (Daniel Yelsky), who is on the verge of puberty, and the wife of husband Bob (Chris O’Donnell), who’s possibly having an affair. Although she hasn’t come completely unwound, she’s clearly depressed, hiding smokes from her son and throwing down a few beers as soon as she gets home from work. She also has a jealous sister (Brooke Smith) and a meddlesome mother (Lesley Ann Warren), two perfectly miserable people who belittle her as frequently as possible. It’s almost as if the world is conspiring against her. And when Bob dies of a heart attack overlooked by his doctor, the unraveling doubles, as Laura is pressured by her sister and mother to sue for malpractice and enroll her son in an elite parochial school.

This is were the webs become tangled. The only person sympathizing with Laura is her brother-in-law, Paul (Rob Benedict), who lives vicariously through his teenage son’s musical talent, seems to revile his wife, and confesses to having had an obsession with Laura in high school. In a nod to parental blindness, we see Paul and his son getting high in different parts of the same house, telling us that he shares the same sense of familial alienation as Laura. But the center of the film is the relationship between Laura and her son David. Between coping with Bob’s death in radically different ways and trying to communicate by chatting on the internet, it’s almost impossible for them to find common ground. Their interplay is charged with misunderstanding and grievances, and even if the rest of the movie is disposable, their scenes together are worth saving.

The film’s concerned with family dysfunction, personal crisis, and getting through to teenagers, all of which takes place a year after 9/11. Placing the action in that period is a calculated move to distinguish it from other bland family dramas, but by being located in Long Island, it’s far enough away from the city that it could be anywhere in America, underscoring the universality of both the collateral effects of the tragedy and the family’s disintegration. Initially, it seems like it uses the context to superficially inflate the drama. But it’s ultimately effective, as David spreads a lie about his father dying heroically in the recovery effort. When the lie begins to unfold, and is eventually revealed, the tension reaches its greatest height, and its resolution redeems the discombobulated mother and this sentimental confection.

For a film that is dangerously transparent about its small-town, middle-class concerns, A Little Help is a humble and unassuming affair. From the casting of the mildly pleasant Jenna Fischer to the bickering sisters and overbearing mother, it smells of dramedy and suburban malaise. But it’s confident about its identity; it’s not too bathetic; and Fischer’s performance is natural and assured. And first-time director Weithorn — who has 30 years of experience grinding out sitcom plots — has the wherewithal to juggle storylines and wrap it up before the strings come in. So, while A Little Help won’t leave much of an impression, it won’t annoy you either. Because, in the end, we usually shrug and move on.

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