The Land of Steady Habits
True enough, each person has his or her struggles, no matter rich, poor or whatever, and tries sorting them out as best he or she can. But it’s hard to interpret Nicole Holofcener’s “The Land of Steady Habits” as anything but a facile sketch of selfish, irresponsible, privileged characters making problems for themselves. These are people with Cadillac problems looking for trees into which they might drive.
Anders (Ben Mendelsohn) is having second thoughts about his two-thirds-life crisis. He left wife Helene (Edie Falco) and his job in finance to retire and while away his hours selecting knickknacks for his shelves. The 50-something Anders beds nearly every attractive single woman he meets but has performance issues. His and Helene’s 27year-old son, Preston (Thomas Mann), after college and rehab, hasn’t learned his lesson. Helene’s best friend’s son, Charlie (Charlie Tahan), figures it’s cool to explore his own drug problem with Anders because the aimless older dude is what passes for a rebel in their well-to-do community.
That’s pretty much it. If the stakes seem low, they are. Really bad decisions are made, people lie, no one convincingly grows. Lest this be taken as biting commentary, the music, stilted dialogue and epilogue assure us it’s in earnest. When avoidable calamities strike, it feels more like a filmmaker’s stab at making things matter than the sword of Damocles falling. It’s neither funny nor emotional; whatever twists or tragedies it musters fall flat. It’s no “The Ice Storm.” Perhaps it speaks to a very narrow audience. Otherwise, it’s not easy to sympathize with insulated characters choosing not to listen, to wallow in their misery, and never to learn from their mistakes despite ample resources and opportunities to do so.