Eng 31 - Igby Goes Down Review PDF

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Igby Goes Downhill: for Rotten Tomatoes “Igby Goes Down” is a cliché film that is directed and written by Burr Steers. ‘Igby Goes Down” is a typical story about a wealthy teenager’s journey throughout the course of several days. The main character Igby is portrayed as a spoiled and annoying brat, who is expelled from many schools. Therefore, he went to military school, but he escaped and hides out at a studio. Due to its unoriginal storyline, ineffective humor, unrelatable characters and undeveloped scenes and relationships, I don’t recommend others to see this movie. It isn’t a bad movie nor a great one, but personally it just doesn’t grab my interest. “Igby Goes Down” is unoriginal and boring because it’s missing a new direction and twist that gets the audience hook to watch what is going on with Igby. No one wants to watch a selfish, pamper and irritating teenager, who only cares about his own problems. John Hughes, who is the writer and director of the film “The Breakfast Club,” which is a coming of age comedy drama, shines in the light when compared to “Igby Goes Down.” The film is about five teenagers, who are in detention and how they slowly create a friendship among themselves. Along that process, Director Hughes adds in drama between the teenagers, which makes it an even better film because the audience can also see character development. Five teenagers in detention isn’t original, but with a new route and perspective, it becomes a one of a kind and enthralling film. If only “Igby Goes Down” possess the same fire and passion as “The Breakfast Club” maybe more people will see the originality of the story and would desire to watch it. Another film that is directed by Burr Steers, the same director that directed “Igby Goes Down,” a comedy dram film is “17 Again,” a comedy film. “17 Again” is about Mike, a 37 year old, who has regrets of abandoning his future for a basketball scholarship when his wife discovers that she is pregnant when they were in high school. One day, he magically turns back into his 17 year old

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self and attends high school to redeem his regrets. Although, “Igby Goes Down” and “17 Again” is different because of their plots, “Igby Goes Down” didn’t meet my expectations since there is a huge gap between the two films that is directed by the same person. The storyline of “17 Again” is unique and interesting, which grabs the audience attention because they will wonder what will happen to Mark. Therefore, the audience will expect the same sense of uniqueness for ‘Igby Goes Down.” Unfortunately, Director Burr Steers just didn’t succeed, maybe sticking to a comedy film is better than a comedy drama film. “Igby Goes Down” attempts to be funny by inconcluding jokes to lighten the mood, but exceeding fails. In the beginning of the movie, Igby and his brother, Oliver seem like they are “killing” their mother, Mimi with a plastic bag while she is snoring loudly like a pig, which attempts for the audience to laugh. But, it actually just confuses the audience about what is happening since this beginning scene is also the ending scene when the audience discovers at the end, Mimi is severely sick, and her sons are just trying to help her. The funny part of this movie is not neglected by the audience, but it is the director and storyline that unsuccessfully delivers the jokes and humors. In “17 again” when Maggie, who is Mike’s daughter likes the 17 year old Mike and attempts to give her virginity to him, it should make the audience feel “eww” since they are really father and daughter. But, with Maggie’s funny expressions and actions, it makes it laughable. In “Igby Goes Down,” everything seems so serious and boring while a light and amusing tone like “17 Again would have been better to deliver the humor. Also the expressions throughout “Igby Goes Down” seems to align with everyone in it, so peope hardly notices any difference. Igby is an obnoxious and exasperating 17 year old, who only cares about himself and his problems. He blames his mother, Mimi, who is a control freak as the root of his problems. It’s

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hard to feel relatable towards him when all his actions makes you feel itchy since it’s so irritating. Not many people have been in his situations where he only interacts with adults and have sexual relationships with some of them. Therefore, it’s unrelatable. On the other hand, “The Breakfast Club” is relatable because many people have been in detention before while other people understand how it takes time to make a friendship. Also, there are multiple undeveloped scenes and relationships that confuses the audience. For instance, in the beginning of the movie, the audience gets a sense of Igby’s home life because at the dinner table, his parents are throwing food at each other with no explanation of what is going on. Then in an instance, we see that his father, Jason coming into the bathroom while Igby is in there and stabs himself in the shower. It becomes difficult for the audience to interpret what is going on without needing to go back and watch the film for a second time. Moreover, there are also under developed relationships that makes the audience question how and why did it happen? For example, Sookie, who has a love triangle with Igby and Oliver is cold towards Igby in the beginning and then she is compassionate towards the end and entangles in a sexual relationship with him. This makes no sense because the audience don’t know why there is this sudden change. There is also no relationship development between Sookie and Oliver. After, they just met for the second time in front of Igby, Oliver brings Sookie home, but the audience can’t see how their feeling are developed. There isn’t enough explanation through the actions of the characters for the audience to understand why there are these sudden changes. Although this movie contains a lot of negative factors, this film does contain some good aspects. For instance, you will feel sympathy towards Igby when Sookie leaves him for his brother, Oliver. When Igby was outside Sookie’s door and begs her to open it and leave with him, she awfully rejects him. Igby is heartbroken and is tearing apart on Sookie’s doorstep. This scene

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significantly displays that the actors are in good shape because they portrayed the character in such an extent that the audience can feel for them. In general, Kieran Culkin portrays Igby really well because he really brings out the snotty and annoying side of Igby. Another good aspect of this movie is the full circle technique that the director uses with the beginning scene and the ending scene as the same. This leaves the audience hanging on their sits since they will be wondering what is going on and what will happen next. Thus, they will continue to watch the movie. Finally, although this film may not be a good film towards many people due to its unoriginal plot, unreliable character, ineffective humor and undeveloped scenes and relationships, others may still want to watch this film if they are curious about what will happen to Igby and how he begin to go uphill. Compared to “The Breakfast Club” and “17 Again,” this isn’t the prospective film for me to watch, and some may agree with me since they won’t want to watch an annoying teenager’s life within a few days. All in all, although a film may not be a good one, it does that a lot of time to produce one, so we should give some credit to Director Burr Steers for trying....