Lousy Carter, 2024.
Written and Directed by Bob Byington.
Starring David Krumholtz, Olivia Thirlby, Martin Starr, Stephen Root, Jocelyn DeBoer, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Macon Blair, Luxy Banner, Andrew Bujalski, and Mona Lee Fultz.
SYNOPSIS:
Man-baby Lousy Carter struggles to complete his animated Nabokov adaptation, teaches a graduate seminar on The Great Gatsby, and sleeps with his best friend’s wife. He has six months to live.
Perhaps the scant 76-minute running time gives it away, but Lousy Carter is a dry, deadpan comedy concerned with jokes over characterization that the scenes feel more like thin sketches. This is frustrating since there is an intriguing, if familiar, premise that sees a man suddenly learn that he is terminally ill and about to die. That character is literature professor Carter (a rare but welcome starring role for David Krumholtz), a self-centered man-child who (and this is the tantalizing part of the premise) decides to tank his life and reputation before dying in the name of having some inappropriate fun before going down in flames and into a grave.
Carter’s class also delivers specialized deep-dive lectures on one book, The Great Gatsby, because writer/director Bob Byington seems to think the right approach to the material is hammering home the point rather than interrogating it through the characters themselves. This forced creative choice gives the whole narrative an overly mechanical mood, which isn’t helped by the dryness of it all. Thankfully, David Krumholtz elevates the material through his performance, portraying Carter as harmless and likable within his increasingly unacceptable personal and professional choices and endless self-pity. There is certainly a “woe is me” element to the performance, but with enough self-awareness to not actually side with him.
Most films of this nature would strictly be about getting affairs in order before kicking the bucket, which is something that Carter dabbles with, and the situation becomes more complicated once his ailing mother (Mona Lee Fultz) dies. They have a fractured relationship, with him learning to tolerate her later in life. For a brief moment, the script also seems drawn to analyze people’s perceptions of others when they are alive, as opposed to when they die, which is something else that is abandoned.
Instead, Lousy Carter (he discusses with his therapist how he got the fitting nickname) is more concerned with roping one of his students (newcomer and shining spot Luxy Banner, immediately seeing through his horrendous views but in need of cash) to participate in his next animated feature (he has previously made one animated feature to some noteworthy acclaim, in part securing him the teaching job), a riff on Lolita novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark, striking up a questionable association. Meanwhile, he sleeps with his best friend’s (Martin Starr) wife (Jocelyn DeBoer) and struggles to reconcile with his visiting sister, who mostly fails at getting through to him how needy he was growing up, which hurt her relationship with their mother.
All of this is amusing and nothing more. It’s not that Lousy Carter, as a film, needs to be edgier, but there is a lightweight, drama-free vibe for a predominantly awful character on the road to death. It does have some solid jokes and strong punchlines (a scene with some unorthodox options for what to do with Carter’s mom’s ashes is particularly funny) and an outrageous final 10 minutes that injects some true life into the proceedings. Without spoiling how, the film does get into society’s vapidness regarding money, which is another interesting thread that the movie never gets a chance to pull on. Aside from that, it is most appreciated as a compelling acting exercise for David Krumholtz.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
