New space for Ron Livingston
‘Loudermilk’ follows counselor mad at the world
Sam Loudermilk wears irritation the way some wear Tom Brady T-shirts. In this new comedy from Peter Farrelly (“Dumb and Dumber”) and Bobby Mort (“The Colbert Report”), Loudermilk (Ron Livingston, “Office Space”) — just about nobody calls him by his first name because he has so few people in his life who know him and even fewer who like him, all his choice — is angry with just about everyone for any reason.
Casting a shadow? Yeah, that could be a good reason to get mad, in Sam's world.
The guy he's most ticked off with? Himself.
Years earlier, on one wicked bender, he crashed his car.
He walked away fine. His wife died.
Now the onetime hard-living rock 'n' roll writer works as a substance abuse counselor. His brand of tough love more or less comes down to saying “Tough!” (peppered with several choice profanities). He's not especially good at his job, and he knows it. See that whole selfloathing thing.
The priest who lets him use his hall for meetings would just as soon ban him from the property.
“You're not warm and fuzzy,” Father Michael (Eric Keenleyside, “Once Upon a Time”) tells Loudermilk. “You're hard and angular and uncomfortable. You're like an Ikea chair who leads sobriety meetings.”
“You do realize I had nothing to do with that `Spotlight' movie, right?” Loudermilk asks later. Always with the charm.
On condition of being allowed to continue using the meeting space, Loudermilk is forced to visit Claire (Anja Savcic), a stripper with her own sobriety issues who hails from a rich family.
Claire appears so frail, you can imagine her biting down on a peanut and breaking her neck. Loudermilk naturally makes her situation worse, though not deliberately. He just can't help himself.
Loudermilk lives with his sponsor Ben (a terrific Will Sasso, “MADtv,”) and, really, the only person who can tolerate him. He finds himself drawn to his new neighbor Allison (Laura Mennell, “Van Helsing”) but he keeps sabotaging himself.
Livingston plays Loudermilk with hangdog weariness. There are no tricks to make him likable. You get the sense that on most days he would just as soon curl up in fetal position on the couch than deal with anyone in the outside world.
There's a swerve in the final moment of the pilot that borders on heartbreaking, and it suggests that Loudermilk's chance at realizing any peace is jeopardized by his inability to get out of his own head and consider what is going on around him.
At a time when substance abuse of all sorts is roiling the nation, “Loudermik,” forgive the pun, is a sobering comedy, in every sense.