Childless

Film Review by Cara McGuigan | 19 Feb 2009
Film title: Childless
Director: Charlie Levi
Starring: Joe Mantegna, Barbara Hershey, Diane Venora, James Naughton
Release date: TBC
Certificate: 15

It’s an interesting idea – a series of monologues to camera, interspliced with home videos, about a protagonist who’s being buried that day. Katherine, 16, is the occasional narrator, hers being the funeral in question. The monologues are delivered by her father and aunt, and their respective partners, on a bright, clear, vibrant Los Angeles day. And a more self-obsessed, self-indulgent bunch of irritants you’d be hard pushed to imagine. Each is so wrapped up in their own life, Katherine barely gets a mention. Thought-provoking in the first instance, it gets more and more difficult to watch, and not only because the characters are so odious. You find yourself picking up on things they’ve said, and drifting off and thinking about your own life – all this self-obsession’s catching. But after a while you just keep drifting off because you don’t really care about any of them, least of all the kid in the box.

Showing as part of Glasgow Film Festival

http://www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk/