In LOUSY CARTER, David Krumholtz (OPPENHEIMER) stars as a ne’er-do-well literature professor adrift on a soulless college campus who learns he only has six months to live. With the clock ticking, will he change his ways? Probably not.
REVIEW:
Lousy Carter is a comedy with a cruel hum- a feel bad satire. It doesn’t give a shit if you lke it or not. And I liked it for forty minutes of its eighty minute run time. The rest feel likes and is literally a funeral procession.
The movie solves the problem of making an unlikeable character likeable. The answer- just make everyone around him worse than he is. Carter (David Krumhotz) is a narcissistic literature professor with little interest in his students, his family and his current and past flings. When he’s given six months to live, the significant world around him collectively shrugs.
Lousy Carter tries to be realistic in how some people approach end of life scenarios. To the film’s credit it avoids the grand set pieces and the angst. Carter gets no hugs, learns no lessons, has no grand despair . He simply gets on with life with no fanfare. He scrolls through his phone, has the same cold and distant conversations with everyone. Fucks who he pleases. Why not, everyone doesn’t give a fuck anyway. He’s a narcissist in a world of uncaring narcissists.
The film is exasperating. It makes you angry and feeling always off balance. The misanthropy gets old. It wants one to soak in the malaise, without any relief. It seems bored with its eternal ennui, but doesn’t have the energy to make it even slightly meta.
Lousy Carter gets a 3.0/5 or a B. It’s streaming on Hulu.
CREDITS:
Directed by
Written by
Bob Byington
Produced by
- Bob Byington
- Chris McKenna
- David Krumholtz
- Olivia Thirlby
- Martin Starr
- Stephen Root
- Jocelyn DeBoer
- Trieste Kelly Dunn
Cinematography
- Carmen Hilbert
- Lauren Pruitt
Edited by
Kris Boustedt
Music by
Leafcuts
Production
company
Americano Brutto
Distributed by
Release dates
- August 9, 2023(Locarno)
- March 29, 2024(United States)
Running time
80 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
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