Full Grown Men doesn't even make childhood seem like all that much fun.
Full Grown Men (2008)
Theatrical Release: Jun 25, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: Set in a stylized yet familiar landscape of Americana, Munro’s whimsical cautionary tale follows Alby Cutrera (Matt McGrath), a 35-year-old husband and father who longs for the days of his carefree boyhood when his only occupation was playing with his action figures. Desperate to escape... Set in a stylized yet familiar landscape of Americana, Munro’s whimsical cautionary tale follows Alby Cutrera (Matt McGrath), a 35-year-old husband and father who longs for the days of his carefree boyhood when his only occupation was playing with his action figures. Desperate to escape the confines of adulthood and return to his halcyon days, Alby tracks down his childhood whipping boy Elias (Judah Friedlander), who now teaches at a special needs school, and persuades him to take a road trip to Diggityland – their favorite childhood theme park. As the dynamic duo motor along Florida’s tatty Orange Blossom Highway, they encounter a cast of tragicomic creatures, including an AWOL ex-theme park employee turned commando hitchhiker (Alan Cumming), an oversexed bartending clown-in-training (Amy Sedaris), and a trailer-dwelling delusional mermaid (Deborah Harry). Calamity and mayhem ensue as Alby and Elias’ sentimental trip down memory lane becomes an unsolicited lesson in the perils of living in the past. --© Emerging Pictures [More]
Genre: Comedies
Starring: Matt McGrath, Judah Friedlander, Alan Cumming, Debbie Harry, Amy Sedaris
Reviews
Full Grown Men is an artistically integrated film that introduces a refreshing new talent to the independent scene, one who combines the visual palette of filmmaker Harmony Korine with an all-important sense of narrative.
Friedlander offers a nicely subtle performance, but the other actors -- including Alan Cumming, Deborah Harry and Amy Sedaris -- appear to have turned up as a favor to the director. Don't feel obliged to follow their lead.
Full Grown Men often becomes as intolerably silly as the twee Amerindies it's reacting to.
Full Grown Men is nicely photographed and has impressive sets; too bad there's so little going on that it seems long even at 78 minutes.
The world is uncomfortably perfect, and sparkly wide shots of stretches of landscape across which Alby walks reduce him to the lost little boy he insists on remaining, swallowed by the big bad world.
The candy-colored Full Grown Men wants to be a kind of anti-Wizard of Oz for a culture inundated with toys and toons.
For better and for worse (at least for a story about a man struggling to behave like an adult), Full Grown Men feels and thinks with the heart and mind of a child.
This whimsically crafted tale that manages to be simultaneously silly, surreal and wise beyond years, is a combo memory lane, reverse time travel road movie and thirtysomething boy bonding satire, plus flaky storytelling in the extreme.
As an audience member, you want to like your lead, or at least find something redeeming in him.
Lyrical and funny, Full Grown Men is a tough-minded film about the need to grow up.
Full Grown Men is a lovely, bewitching film with a lot on its mind.
A wanly likable road-trip comedy-drama about a young man's Peter Pan-like refusal to let go of his childhood.
A good idea does not a movie make. ... Full Grown Men is a comedy that forgot to be funny and a drama that had trouble getting to its points.
Obviously, Munro is reaching for something about how people allow themselves to get mired in the past. But his characters and situations are so exaggerated and dreary that his point gets quickly lost.
The relationship between the stunted Alby and the mature Elias is funny and real.
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