‘Living Boy’ suffers from stale script
“The Only Living Boy in New York,” in which a misunderstood Millennial man falls for his rich father’s mistress, is a misfire in Manhattan, and there is nothing that its appealing cast can do to save it.
The story begins as recent college graduate Thomas (Callum Turner) is wondering what to do with his life, though money is clearly not an issue: His biggest crisis seems to be deciding whether he should live in the Lower or Upper East Side of Manhattan. There is girl trouble, too, but fortunately a wise alcoholic stranger (Jeff Bridges) has just moved in upstairs, and within seconds, Thomas has someone to confide in.
That’s a good thing for our lad in distress, because he discovers that his father (Pierce Brosnan) is having an affair with the beautiful Johanna (Kate Beckinsale). Thomas stalks her, and for reasons that escape us, Beckinsale responds by basically inviting Thomas to bed. We briefly hold out hope that this relationship might turn into something interesting, but Turner and Beckinsale have zero chemistry, mainly because they have nothing to work with.
Indeed, most of the problems of “Living Boy” can be traced to the script, which is filled with silly dialogue and embarrassing narration that attempts to explain the nonsensical actions of people whom we care less and less about as the story moves along. The screenplay seems like it came from Woody Allen’s reject pile — 20 years ago.
The actors here are game, but it’s difficult for them to engage when there’s nothing on the page. The pointlessness of the project becomes painfully evident in the third act, when we are treated to a plot twist that seems thrown in to divert us from the fact that the older woman-younger man relationship offers nothing in the way of insight.
The best thing about “Living Boy” is the performance of Cynthia Nixon, who plays Thomas’ emotionally unstable mother. Creating a character out of thin air, Nixon provides another reminder that she has been building an interesting body of work since her stint on “Sex and the City.”
This is a movie that borrows from many other movies — “Manhattan” and “The Graduate,” just to name two — and there is nothing wrong with that. But director Marc Webb and writer Allan Loeb don’t bring anything new to the proceedings, and worse, neither the dramatic nor the occasional comic beats hit their notes. All in all, “Living Boy” just doesn’t have any life.