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"Life's
but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets
his hour
upon
the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told
by an idiot,
full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
For
Billy Heinlickburger, life just, well, sucks. He is unemployed
and lives at home with his crazy German parents, who are
constantly nagging at and insulting him. He has no friends,
except for Susan, his former flame from school who he
happens to run into.
While
Susan has a steady job and an apartment, Billy hasn't
seemed to move past the high school mentality. He doesn't
seem to want to get a job -- except for the fact that
his parents are driving him crazy. He still acts rather
childish -- for example, while on a "date" with
a girl who is constantly on her cell phone, Billy swipes
the phone, deep-fries it, and puts it on her plate while
she is in the bathroom. He also has vague ambitions of
being a writer, artist, or musician, but he isn't that
good at any of those things, and doesn't have much drive
to get any better.
However,
Billy still has feelings for Susan, and having her back
in his life gives him just enough incentive to begin to
try to make some changes in his life.
Content
Overall,
this was an interesting story, and one that I think could
apply to quite a lot of people's lives. Making the transition
from school to the "real world" can be very
difficult for some people, so much so that they never
really seem to grow up.
Actor
Alec Sedgley did a good job at portraying the rather lazy
and childish Billy. He seemed to have a good handle on
the frustrations that a young adult can feel at this particular
time in life. One knows the importance of having a job,
yet being unemployed is often preferable to having a job
that is miserable or boring. Morgan Lees as Susan did
a good job of portraying the sympathetic and down-to-earth
ex-girlfriend, who is trying to be encouraging to Billy,
yet is also suppressing some of the old feelings that
she once had for him.
Probably
the best acting in the film, however, was done by Billy's
parents. Billy's dad, Jurgen, walks about the house testing
every light bulb, counts his cornflakes in German, wears
cotton balls in his ears, and watches nature documentaries
of chimpanzees having sex. Billy's mom, Gertrude, knits,
and cries, and knits, and cries, and…knits some more.
And both of them continuously rant against what a lazy
son he is.
Giving
another good acting performance was Susan's roommate/possible
boyfriend, Felix. When we first meet Felix, he is wearing
jeans underneath a silver sleeveless dress and a pink
feather boa. Considering that he also speaks with a lisp
and prances about the apartment, it's safe to assume that
he is probably gay. Though given the fact that sometimes
it seems that his flamboyance is very over-the-top, there
were times when I thought that Felix might just be putting
on a big act to get into Susan's pants. The thing that
confused me about Felix's character is that both Billy
and Susan indirectly refer to him as Susan's boyfriend
a couple of times throughout the film. Given that his
character's exact sexual orientation is never really identified,
except by suggestion, it seems as though Susan should
make it clear at some point what her relationship to Felix
is.
One
interesting convention that the filmmakers used is documentary-style
asides with each individual character, in which they would
sit down in front of the camera and answer questions about
themselves, their relationship to other characters, and
their feelings about these other characters. For instance,
when Susan is sat down for her "interview,"
she is asked why she broke up with Billy in the first
place. Her response is, "Because he's an idiot."
These moments add some psychology behind each character,
and they are more visually interesting than just doing
narration. The only problem is consistency. These little
interview moments occur only a few times during the course
of the film, and then primarily in the beginning. It seems
as though it would be more interesting to cut some of
these segments down, maybe shoot a few more, and then
spread them out throughout the movie.
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