"You're Fifty Years Old And You Still Think The World Was Made For You..."
Tackling notions of the mid-life crisis and looking back on a lifetime gone swiftly by, School of Rock writer, Mike White, directs and provides the screenplay for Brad's Status, a low-key and pleasantly thoughtful comedy which utilises the leading star skills of Ben Stiller who returns to the big screen after a somewhat nonexistent cinematic footprint over the course of the past few years or so. Whilst Stiller's comedy can somewhat not exactly hit the mark, take the likes of Zoolander 2 for instance, the emergence of White's script and a wide range of lovely supporting performances from an extravagantly well-versed cast, proves to be a solid winning return for the comedic stalwart, and although the underlying narrative point of the movie is one which has been tackled before in a wide range of differing movies ranging from American Beauty to last year's Ingrid Goes West, Brad's Status is a cool, sombre and sometimes heartwarming drama which doesn't ever feel the need to raise up from its' subtle examination of its' titular leading character.
Accompanying his son, Troy (Austin Abrams, Paper Towns) along the East Coast whilst they seek out potential future colleges, Brad Sloane (Stiller) reminisces about the success of his out of touch school friends whilst he contemplates his own life's middling mediocrity, one which is full with seething regret and unwarranted shame in comparison to his long lost forgotten acquaintances. With the narrative primarily explained through the use of Stiller's voiceover and some rather excessive yet undeniably comedic dream sequences which convey's Sloane's belief of his friend's individual successes, White's movie works primarily thanks to a brilliantly conflicted leading performance from Stiller alongside the grounding of its' youthful cast, with the likes of Abrams and Shazi Raja counteracting Sloane's contempt for the world by explaining its' true riches in a It's a Wonderful Life style monologue. Whilst the movie falls at times for swaying too much from the central narrative and limiting its' actual comedic zingers to a minimal amount, White's movie is still an interesting social drama which reinforces the idea that when put to good use, Stiller is still an important and welcome leading star.
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