Legendary playwright Harold Blumenthal (Brian Cox) passed away a week ago. His brother Saul (Mark Blum) is dealing with it in his own way, mainly through not letting things flow. Saul’s son Ethan (Seth Fisher) has one main issue, namely his inability to find the perfect woman. Cheryl (Laila Robbins), Saul’s wife, is struggling to return to acting. The whole Blumenthal family are seeing Harold in different ways nowadays, fancy laughing yourself to death. Whilst Brian Cox is the subject of the film, Blumenthal focuses more on the lives of those that have been affected by his death.
The issue with the film is that it spends too much time obsessing on Ethan, who is one of the most annoyingly self-righteous people ever to hit the screen. His attitude just makes the hatred of him even easier and also his snappy chatter to everyone he meets is gruelling difficult to constantly keep a reasonable understanding of what he aims for. Spending too much time with the “woe-is-me” and misanthropic attitude, to give even the hardened viewer the downers, is why the film becomes a bore that never lifts out of the doldrums it has created.
Blumenthal lacks anything fresh to say on a situation that is, supposedly, showing the totality of family life. Instead it’s a wasted experience that focuses too much on the wrong character to make you care much for the others around him.
Mark has awarded Blumenthal two Torches of Truth
