Igby Slocumb is a prototypical rich, disillusioned, rebellious adolescent movie character. His mother Mimi is a pill-popping bitch; his father Jason (Bill Pullman) is a victim of mental illness; his brother Oliver is a pretentious asshole. Igby reacts by going around making biting sarcastic comments, engaging in self-destructive behavior and getting kicked out of what seems like every prep school on the East Coast. Of course, deep down, he's really just an emotionally scarred and deeply depressed young man (if this sounds familiar, it's because Igby is an updated version of that other famously angst-ridden teen, Holden Caulfield).
One summer, Igby goes away to work with his godfather, D.H. (Jeff Goldblum), in New York. Thus begins a classic coming-of-age story. During his strange journey, Igby meets all sorts of interesting but pathetic characters, including Rachel (Amanda Peet), D.H.'s beautiful drug-addict mistress and Sookie (Claire Danes), a bohemian college student. Almost the entire movie is told in flashback; the events lead up to the opening scene of Mimi's death.
The plot of "Igby" is somewhat complicated, not quite coherent and essentially unimportant; it is more a portrait than a story. Rather than following a plot because we want to get from point A to point B, we watch as the scenes reveal, bit by bit, a picture of Igby and his dead-end life.
In one scene, we see the needle marks on Rachel's arms before she covers them up with elegant clothing and goes back to looking flawless. In another, we witness Igby and Sookie scream at each other through her door, and Igby realizes that he's been deserted by his only friend. We hear Mimi casually remark of Igby, "His creation was an act of animosity. Why shouldn't his life be?" Fortunately, the plot is not necessary for one to understand the terrible state that Igby's life is in and the subsequent disillusionment that he experiences. We wouldn't be able to understand it completely anyway.
"Igby"'s darkly humorous tone is set from the first death scene. There are many other moments that are too tragic to laugh at, but too funny not to laugh at. The movie paints a distressing picture of the world, but does so with a black sense of humor. The actual events of the movie are mostly unhappy; the script is full of comic dialogue (Sookie to Oliver: "So you're the fascist brother?" Igby's reply to Sookie: "He prefers 'Young Republican.'") It's appropriate and it makes the movie more thought-provoking than it would have been if it were simply funny or simply sad. The comedy saves "Igby" from being completely melodramatic and downright depressing.
Culkin manages to win our sympathy. This is a credit to him, for the character has a tendency to be aggravating. At one point, Oliver tells Igby, "If Gandhi had spent any prolonged amount of time with you, he would have kicked the living shit out of you." While this is an overstatement, sometimes I couldn't blame people for wanting to slap him around. Igby is exasperatingly stubborn, gloomy and sassy.
But Culkin skillfully steers away from the spoiled cynical WASP child stereotype and shows Igby as just another human being having a terrible time of it. We empathize with, and ultimately feel a fondness for, Igby. Judging by this movie, this Culkin is on his way to becoming a far better actor and a much bigger star than his older brother Macaulay ("Home Alone") ever was.
In fact, each member of the prominent cast give fine performances in this film. For veterans such as Sarandon, Pullman and Goldblum, this is just what's expected. The real surprise: Phillippe, often seen as just another pretty face, is remarkably good in this film. Oliver is a jerk, but Phillippe uses just the right amount of sensitivity; we're convinced that it's just his way of hiding the same emotional scars as Igby, and we don't hate him quite so much. Of the movie's few flaws, none of them are in the acting.
"Igby" is a neat blend of comedy and tragedy, a modern-day replica of "Catcher in the Rye" that actually hits home in the same way that the original does. Culkin's Igby has all of the depth and arguably more warmth than Salinger's Holden Caulfield had. Like its title character, "Igby Goes Down" is smart, witty, amusing, sarcastic and ultimately heartbreaking.