By Zach Kolkin

December 6, 2003

In the 15 months or so that have elapsed since its release, Igby Goes Down has become one of those films that everyone has heard of, but no one has actually seen. The picture out in the Fall of 2002 to fairly good reviews, was shown mostly in a few arthouse movie theaters around the country, got nominated for a couple of lesser, more "indie-minded" awards, and then promptly disappeared off the radar screen. Heck, the film only managed to place tenth on BOP's annual list of the best overlooked films of the year. Truly, this was a film overlooked by the overwhelming majority of filmgoers. Perhaps the movie was so easily written off because its story, that of a disenfranchised and preternaturally mature youth, is so frequently mimicked. General opinion seems to go that once you have read Catcher in the Rye, you know as much as you're ever going to about boys like Holden Caulfield, and this is not necessarily a fact that this film disputes. Indeed, the intention of Burr Steers, the first-time writer and director of Igby Goes Down, does not seem to be to trump Salinger, but rather, in Igby, to create his own notion of how a boy like Holden would live in the 21st century, and in this vein, the film succeeds mightily.

Jason Slocumb, Jr., or as he is better known, Igby, is born, for better or worse, into the world of the Manhattan socialites, with penthouses on the Upper East Side and summer homes in the Hamptons. His father, Jason Sr., suffers a mental breakdown when Igby is a little boy, and is shipped off to a "home for the befuddled", as his son so eloquently puts it. Thus, for most of his adolescent life, Igby grows up with his mother, Mimi, who takes the concept of "tough love" to a new level. Perhaps the best example of her attitude towards her son is in the coining of the nickname "Igby": when Igby got in trouble when he was little, we are told, he would always blame it on his teddy bear, whom he called Igby. To combat her son's evasive maneuvers, Mimi simply took to calling him Igby as well. The boy is shipped all over the East Coast to boarding schools, all of which he manages to get himself kicked out of, and the majority of the film takes place when he literally manages to escape from the parochial school he is supposed to attend, and instead takes up a bohemian-chic lifestyle in Manhattan.

What is perhaps most interesting about the movie is that, just as Catcher succeeds in telling its story brilliantly in writing, Igby Goes Down captures all the aspects of a story told superbly on film. Perhaps the best example of this is the cast, featuring almost universally fantastic performances, three of which are arguably career-best: Kieran Culkin in the title role, Ryan Phillippe as his older brother Ollie, and Jeff Goldblum as D.H. Baines, Igby's grossly rich philanderer of a godfather. Culkin nails the role of the mature 16-going-on-23 Igby, from his (always magnetic, never repellent) dalliances in self-importance to his occasional lapses into child mentality. The role of Igby's brother Oliver, who is essentially everything that Igby is not, seems to have been written for Phillippe, who takes a character that is very similar to the one he played in Cruel Intentions and adds a surprising amount of depth to it. Finally, there is Goldblum, whose character we immensely like and respect, even though every indication is that we should hate his guts. I have not even mentioned the two outstanding female performances in the movie, those of Susan Sarandon (as Mimi) and Claire Danes, who plays Sookie, an older friend of Igby's. These two should not be discounted, however. The role of Mimi could easily have been one of straightforward cruelty, but Sarandon adds a degree of warmth to the character that sneaks up on you as the movie progresses, only becoming fully and surprisingly apparent by the end. Danes, as Igby's older girlfriend, understands perfectly that Sookie is not in love with Igby, but simply charmed and bemused by him. From Igby's relationship with his brother to D.H.'s relationship with his godson to Oliver's relationship with his mother, the interactions between the cast are completely engrossing to watch.

Much of what I have written above focuses on what this film is not, or more specifically, what this film could have become. Just as with Igby, the film itself could easily slip into narcissism, but thankfully, it never goes quite that far (even if it did, you get the feeling that it would still be alluring rather than revolting; again, just like Igby). Although the picture is decidedly quirky and borderline-somber in tone, little touches - such as the homage to Culkin's older brother's Home Alone 2 when Igby checks into the O'Hare Hilton - make it both delightful and enjoyable to watch. Burr Steers has created not a cold and intellectually pretentious knock-off of Catcher in the Rye, as some might have expected, but rather a film with a surprising amount of warmth that certainly deserves the opportunity to charm and bemuse skeptics and film-lovers alike.

View other columns by Zach Kolkin