Jealousy gives way to a fresh perspective
MOVIE REVIEW /
“Dad, are you having a nervous breakdown?” Travis asks.
The question is fair, not least because Travis’ father, Brad, is played by Ben Stiller, a high-strung performer even at his mellowest.
Stiller, lean as a greyhound and gray around the temples, occupies the volatile middle ground between decent fellow and abrasive jerk, between adequacy and failure. He’s a regular guy always threatening to turn into guy, embarrassing the rest of us by association.
In “Brad’s Status” — Mike White’s astute, cringy and, ultimately, kindhearted new film — Stiller experiences a midlife crisis that’s less about restlessness or lust than a dreadful loss of perspective.
Brad, who runs a small nonprofit, lives in a handsome Craftsman-style house on a leafy Sacramento block. His wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), who works in state government, is patient and devoted. Travis (Austin Abrams), a rising highschool senior, is an excellent student, a gifted musician and an all-around good kid.
Brad lives in a soft pocket of the American dream; he should be counting his blessings — or, at least, checking his privilege.
Instead, he dreams of the greener grass where his old college pals frolic, consumed Mike White. R (for language) 1:41 at the Dublin Village 18, Gateway and Lennox 24 theaters
with envy for their gilded, fast-track lives. As he and Travis prepare to tour potential colleges, Brad, who went to Tufts University, is amazed to learn that his son is Harvard material. He is seized by anxieties that quickly migrate from the practical to the existential.
The question of whether he and Melanie will be able to afford Travis’ tuition gives way to a resentful reckoning with his peers. How come he doesn’t have what they have?
Nick (White), a Hollywood director, has a house that has been featured on the cover of a glossy shelter rag. Jason (Luke Wilson), a hedge-fund mogul, has a bevy of blond kids and a private jet. Billy (Jemaine Clement), who made a fortune in technology, lives in polyamorous retirement in Maui. Craig (Michael Sheen) has parlayed a political career into best-selling authorship and TV celebrity.
Where did Brad go wrong? Why does he rate only a worthless silver airline-rewards card, instead of gold or platinum?
He ruminates on such matters in long passages of voice-over narration, brought back to reality by the ringing of his cellphone or the needs of his son.
Brad also reconnects with his old friends — three of the four, at least — who drop hints that they might have problems of their own. Everybody does. And White is committed to giving everyone a fair hearing. He specializes in exquisitely awkward scenes made more so by his evenhanded sympathy. In one especially acute moment, Brad unburdens himself to a Harvard undergraduate named Ananya (Shazi Raja) who is a friend of Travis’ from back home. Rather than singing harmony with Brad’s white man’s blues, she rebukes him for his unthinking white male entitlement.
“You’re 50 years old, and you still think the world was made for you,” she marvels.
She has a point. So does he. His angst is real, as are the gradations of social hierarchy that cause it. In the bigger picture, though, his misery is trivial.
At its best, “Brad’s Status” is genuinely thought-provoking.
As a writer, TV creator and director — his resume includes “Beatriz at Dinner” and the HBO series “Enlightened” — White has honed a comic sensibility that avoids cruelty and minimizes exaggeration. His characters are bundles of contradictory impulses and qualities — admirable and awful, full of idealism and full of themselves, weird yet familiar.
“Brad’s Status,” a worthy addition to the burgeoning genre of empty-nest movies, smooths more feathers than it ruffles. The movie protects Brad from humiliation and finds a safe space for his bruised ego.
There’s something a little disappointing about this but also something honest.
The movie’s message, after all, is this: What looks like disappointment should be embraced as the only real happiness there is.