{"id":96506,"date":"2019-02-14T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=96506"},"modified":"2019-02-11T18:46:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T02:46:42","slug":"sundance-2019-paddleton-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/sundance-2019-paddleton-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Sundance Journal: Paddleton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cancer dramas are usually mawkish, teary things, melodramatic films where the fear of loss is exuded in every frame. It&#8217;s somewhat refreshing that director Alex Lehmann and co-writer\/star Mark Duplass managed with <em>Paddleton<\/em> to find a way of creating a warm, amusing, and deeply affecting film about friendship and mortality that avoids all the obvious pitfalls.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The title refers to a haphazard game played by two neighbors, Michael (Mark Duplass) and Andy (Ray Romano). The two bounce a ball off an abandoned drive-in movie screen (no small irony for a Netflix presentation), trying to get it to bounce into a barrel. Taken broadly, the game is just as dependent on the luck of the bounce as life, a delicate metaphor that&#8217;s not overplayed.<\/p>\n<p>The two share pizza nights together watching the same kung-fu film over and over. They bond deeply as friends. Duplass exudes his usual, disheveled charm, but Romano once again demonstrates his remarkable range. It shouldn&#8217;t come as a surprise, since he&#8217;s been in some mighty impressive movies, but it always seems like a kind of awakening when he shows up on screen, taking a moment to divorce himself from his goofy stand-up character to inhabit what we get in this project. <\/p>\n<p>When Michael gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, the two go on a surreal road trip to a Dutch-themed town in California, seeking out the method by which he can decide to live on his own terms. The phrase &#8220;assisted suicide comedy&#8221; doesn&#8217;t exactly roll off the tongue, but with a cracking script and terrifically understated performances, there are lots of things to admire about this film that tries something really hard and succeeds.<\/p>\n<p>The tonal shifts are the most challenging, and thanks to subtle direction and performances, <em>Paddleton<\/em> manages the trick effortlessly. Even the maudlin elements are downplayed. We really feel like we&#8217;re watching two friends come to terms with everything they need to encounter together. The movie is deeply affecting and effective.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cancer dramas are usually mawkish, teary things, melodramatic films where the fear of loss is exuded in every frame. It&#8217;s somewhat refreshing that director Alex Lehmann and co-writer\/star Mark Duplass managed with Paddleton to find a way of creating a warm, amusing, and deeply affecting film about friendship and mortality that avoids all the obvious&#8230;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_excerpt -->","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":96507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4508],"tags":[1234,4240,10674,3031,1959],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96506"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96509,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96506\/revisions\/96509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}