Rating: ****
Like something out of the world of Alexander
Payne by way of Mitchell Hurwitz, The Oranges is a witty and uproarious
look at how one man’s midlife crisis breaks apart two families only to rebuild
them in new and interesting ways. First-time feature filmmaker Julian Farino
has gathered an impressive and talented ensemble and has developed a script
that’s sharp and insightful and replete with several big laughs. So much so
that more than one viewing is recommended to catch everything.
The set-up is simple. Vanessa Walling (Alia
Shawkat) has been home from college for two years, and though her dream is to
design furniture, she finds herself perpetually redoing her portfolio and
working a “McJob” while constantly finding reasons not to move out of her
parents’ house. David (Hugh Laurie) and Paige Walling (Catherine Keener) are
letting their marriage slowly slip away, but David does have a solid bromance
with his neighbour Terry Ostroff (Oliver Platt). Vanessa remarks that she feels
like a fifth wheel with her parents, Terry and his wife Carol (Allison Janney).
Into this serene bit of suburbia returns
Nina (Leighton Meester), Terry and Carol’s daughter, who used to be friends
with Vanessa, a long time ago, but they drifted apart in high school, and Nina
left town and has never been back since graduation. When Nina discovers her
boyfriend cheating, her whole independent world crumbles and has no choice but
return home to New Jersey. Carol is pleased and tries to make love match between Nina, and
David and Paige’s oldest child, their son Toby (Adam Brody), but that’s not the
male member or the Walling family Nina feels a connection with.
With a cast like this, you can’t go wrong
and they are more than up to the challenge of the subtle and wicked script by Ian
Helfer and Jay Reiss. Any fan of dry wit and quietly quirky characters that
still feel real and are drawn in a complex way will enjoy Farino’s efforts. And
having cut his teeth directing episodes of Sex and the City, Entourage,
and The Office he’s a director that knows how to building an engaging
and hilarious character-based comedy.
The ensemble is solid, led very well by
Laurie who casts off any resemblance to his well-known, prickly TV doctor role
to play a man completely unsure and completely unengaged by life anymore.
Laurie also has surprisingly good chemistry with Meester, who can mix both
charming and insufferable with effortless skill. You really can believe that
these two people could conceivably fall for each other, but the focus is just
as much about how the people around them react to their mismatched,
May-December romance as it is about the romance itself.
I want to especially highlight Alia Shawkat,
who like Michael Cera cut her teeth as part of the cast of Arrested
Development, and though she has yet to enjoy the kind of big screen success
that her TV cousin has, she had the more difficult role. Like Jason Bateman she
played the straight man, or woman, which is the most difficult part to play.
Shawkat again plays the straight woman in this film, and she has to carry the
film as the more adult figures fall apart in the midst of the affair. If
someone gets a career kick from The Oranges, I hope it’s her.
But overall, The Oranges itself
deserves a wide audience, and they will laugh. Or at least I think they’ll
laugh. A theatre of 700 average, everyday filmgoers at TIFF certainly roared,
and they roared in such a way that you couldn’t hear entire lines of dialogue.
Masterful performances, a sharp script and tight direction make The Oranges one
of the finest comedies I’ve seen in some time. An immensely rewarding time at
the cinema.
