Likable Kornbluth offers tale of romance, finance
Josh Kornbluth is the engaging monologist, who has done a number of popular one-man shows, and his brother Jacob Kornbluth is a film director. Their previous collaboration, the comedy “Haiku Tunnel,” had the cursed luck of going into release on Sept. 14, 2001. It deserved an audience, but people at that time were too shell-shocked by 9/11 to pry themselves off the couch — and too dazed to laugh even if they did.
They deserve better luck this time. “Love & Taxes,” based on a Josh Kornbluth monologue, is an entertaining and thoroughly likable story of Josh’s experiences with the taxman. Fancying himself a revolutionary, and a little lazy, too, he went seven years without filing his income taxes — then filed all seven years at once, but with the wrong accountant.
The movie intersperses regular narrative scenes with scenes of Kornbluth onstage performing the monologue, but with the balance decidedly on the side of regular dramatic narrative. Unlike “Haiku Tunnel,” in which the monologue sections were not quite up to the level of the acted sections, “Love & Taxes” feels more of a piece, with both ends holding up well and supporting each other.
Kornbluth is a nice actor, emotionally present and spontaneous, and with a purity of essence about him. He just seems like a very nice guy, and this is important, because, over the course of the film, he gets into the kind of trouble reserved only for really nice people or complete raving imbeciles. With Kornbluth, there’s never any doubt that he belongs in the former category. He trusts people he shouldn’t trust.
“Love & Taxes” covers a lot of ground in just 90 minutes. This is the great advantage of being able to switch to scenes of Kornbluth onstage. He can blast through exposition and serve up each scene — choosing to show only those scenes that work best. The movie takes Kornbluth through a crucial period in his life, in which he starts off with an office job, and then gets a shot as a Hollywood screenwriter. Along the way, he finds love.
The tax story connects and spans all the other elements, and it’s a fascinating, cautionary tale. The obvious lesson is that everybody should do their taxes, but Kornbluth also wants to advance the civic notion that taxes are a positive good, not a necessary evil, that they pay for roads, schools, etc. To that end, he enlists former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who plays a tax attorney who lectures Josh on his responsibilities as a citizen.
But there’s yet another point to be gleaned from Kornbluth’s story, and that’s that an irrational fear of the taxman can blind people to real threats — specifically, an industry devoted to exploiting fear and taking advantage of individuals in tax trouble. “Love & Taxes” is light and funny, but it’s also a kind of horror story, in which the scariest thing isn’t the government but the person Kornbluth hires to help him.
In addition to Kornbluth, who is his own best asset, the movie gets a lift from a strong supporting cast, including Sarah Overman, as Josh’s sweet but neurotic girlfriend; Harry Shearer as a slick, Hollywood producer; Robert Sicular as Josh’s proud, tormented father; and a serene yet thoroughly alarming Helen Shumaker as Josh’s accountant.
For Bay Area theatergoers, there is an additional kick of seeing many familiar stage actors turn up in smaller roles. Among these are Lorri Holt, Jeff Raz, Amy Resnick, Darren Bridgett and Kay Kostopoulos.