Scanialara
You won't be disappointed!
Catangro
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
SnoopyStyle
It's the late 70's Long Island. Lyme disease is a new discovery. Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin) lives with his father Mickey (Alec Baldwin) and Brenda (Jill Hennessy). He longs for his best friend Adrianna Bragg (Emma Roberts). She lives with her parents Charlie (Timothy Hutton) and Melissa (Cynthia Nixon). Jobless Charlie suffers from Lyme disease and is hiding in the basement. Melissa and Mickey are struggling to sell his real estate project called Bartlettown. Scott is picked on by the school bully. Scott's volatile older brother Jimmy (Kieran Culkin) comes home from the Army and beats up the bully for him.It's a well-acted indie of familiar suburban family dysfunction. The Culkin brothers are terrific. Emma Roberts is compelling. The adults in the movie don't take a backseat to the kids. There isn't anything completely new but it is done confidently. This movie needs some explosiveness to get to the next level.
Prismark10
Lymelife is a low budget independent film that has come through the Sundance Lab. Although it was quickly shot with a very low budget you would not think it with its cast that includes Oscar winner, Timothy Hutton.The film is set in Long Island of the late 1970s although the year is not specified. It focuses on Scott (Rory Culkin) a teenage dork, into Star Wars and gets bullied. He is attracted to Adrianna (Emma Roberts) who is maturing into womanhood and attracting male attention.His older brother (Kieran Culkin) who has beefed up in the army takes care of the bullies but his arrival brings into open some family strain. Dad (Alec Baldwin) wants to hit the big time with real estate, he is a womaniser while their mom does not share the dream.Adrianna's dad (Timothy Hutton) is struck down by Lyme's disease and life takes a downward spiral as he realises his wife is cheating and of course he is the one who goes with a shotgun to hunt for deer. Oh dear, this might not end well.This is a coming of age drama from first time writer/directors. Some of the time setting is a bit shaky, The Falklands Conflict took place in 1982 and there was no danger of the USA being involved. Rory gives a warm performance of teenage angst and confusion ably supported by Emma Roberts and the older actors.I suppose the ending is slightly signposted but its a good slice of life drama.
arrowhead12272
Surprisingly this film went too far under my radar in 2009. I recently had the chance to see it and it is quite possibly one of the best coming of age films since "Stand By Me". I see lots and lots of movies. It is my favorite thing to do. I am usually pretty hard on them, but I was hypnotized by the general flow of Lymelife. It is not revolutionary or gimmicky like a lot of "indie" films. It's pretty straight forward and brutally honest. It deal with life, divorce, fist time sex, bullying, transference of parental anxieties onto children. An extremely smart script and a more impressive directorial debut by Derick Martini, who wrote the script. The performances are razor sharp all around and it really stamps that Martini has a distinct and unique voice all his own. I have "Hick", his follow up on my list and will be watching it shortly. Overlooked performance of 2009? Timothy Hutton as the cuckoled husband to Cynthia Nixon. Oscar worthy.Edit: I have now seen Martini's Hick and note that "Lymelife" is the superior of the two. Hick has its merits and is moving at times, but the script is not as good as "Lymelife". It's worth watching for the acting though.
tieman64
"The one thing that the public dislikes, is afraid of, is novelty. Any attempt to extend the subject-matter of art is extremely distasteful to the public; and yet the vitality and progress of art depend in a large measure on the continual extension of subject-matter." - Oscar WildeDirected by Derick Martini, "Lymelife" watches as several middle-class, suburban Americans wrestle with adultery, unhappiness and boredom. The film was loosely based on the childhood experiences of its director.Many films have attempted to map the disaffections of white suburbia. Virtually all these films focus on sex as being the primary source of discontentment. "Lymelife" is no different, the film observing as fathers cheat on wives, mothers regret marriages and young lovers fret over first kisses. Then the guns are brought out and people "shockingly" die. This is a genre that can't make it to 90 minutes without killing someone.Independent cinema has long been as formulaic as mainstream Hollywood. For most of its running time, "Lymelife" is itself just like every other "disaffected white suburbanites" movie ("American Beauty", "The Ice Storm", "The Sweet Hereafter", "Life as a House", "Snow Angels", "Little Children", "Revolutionary Road", "Imaginary Heroes", "House of Sand and Fog", "The Squid and the Whale" etc). At its best, though, "Lymelife" does sketch a decent portrait of a marriage in collapse. Elsewhere the film is buoyed by several fine performances (Rory Culkin, Kieran Culkin, Timothy Hutton etc). Emma Roberts co-stars as a not quite Manic Pixie Dream Girl.7/10 – See "Safe", "Pump up the Volume", "Everything Must Go" and "Happiness".
