The Chumscrubber (2005)

Abandoned. Adrift.

She would tear Frank down, apart and ruin him with her eyes were she here. But now her flip flops remain silently askew on the beach, and a dog-eared book’s creased cover flaps in the breeze and Frank would have asked her about it, the plot, the characters, the meaning, how it made her feel, if she were here. But she is not, though her crumpled clothes (a make shift pillow) lie atop a too-small towel stolen from the hotel room. Frank’d chastise her jokingly about that were she here. An itinerant dirty sea gull feather is impaled to the sand by her brown hair clip and “Blister in the Sun” or “Gloomy Sunday” drifts still out of the Ipod drooping from her canvas purse. But she herself is gone, now reduced to a few footprints in the wet sand nearest the tumultuous incoming tide and soon these will be gone too.

But the ocean will not wipe away the image of The Chumscrubber (Posin 2005), woefully imprinted on the high definition widescreen on the back of Frank’s skull. He is truly reluctant to return to the lodge now, should the blasted thing be playing once more on his few premium channels.

For those of you not in the know, and misguided enough to be here seeking a review, The Chumscrubber is not some deranged/ deformed fishwife slashing up coeds in a remote northwest fishing village. No, that would make a better movie. The Chumscrubber is the result of a hack writer/director peddling a script that A-list actors cannot comprehend and thus assume is great. It is tired, overblown tale of the endlessly explored seamy side of suburban life. It’s Donnie Darko (Kelly 2001) without the intrigue. It’s American Beauty (Mendes 1999) without the great performances. It's Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis 1922). It's the Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck 1961). It's crap.

The film stars Billy Elliot’s (Daltry 2000) Jamie Bell as a suburban kid whose drug pusher pal commits suicide. Some other kids attempt to kidnap his brother until he gives up the dead kid’s stash. One teen (Camilla Belle) you’ll recognize as the annoyingly not killed star of When a Stranger Calls (Wall 2006), the absolutely terrible and pointless remake of the more than watchable original (Walton 1979) Meanwhile the adults, featuring Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction; Lyne 1987)and Rita Wilson (Volunteers; Meyer 1985) and the like seem to not care what is going on. Parental neglect may, in fact, be the root of much of the evil in the world. But Frank is real f-in’ tired of seeing it as a plot device. Small shining points in the film are consummate character actor, William Fitchner’s (Armageddon; Bay 1998) blundering psychiatrist and Ralph Fiennes’ (Schindler’s List; Spielberg 1993) dolphin obsessed mayor. But these performances far from sell the picture. We get it, Mr. Posin. Suburbia is bad. Parents are ignorant bunglers. Teens are too-smart-for-their-own-good little adults. You’d be better off renting Home Alone (Columbus 1990); especially since, if you look you’ll see one of those sneering Culkin clones chewing up some of the scenes. But in This World which does not exist and has been made up by Frank for his own amusement, she might just clamber up the beach and give Frank a hug. More likely she will have found another reason to avoid (not just abhor) Frank. You are never as alone as when you are about to be slapped for caring about the unattainable. (Which is to say everything.) Instead, she is awkwardly silent after the swim. And the quiet is all Frank gets. Not great but her silent stare at her own sand-festooned feet is better than anger. Much better, Frank guesses.