Small
Apartments
If the idea of Little
Britain’s Matt Lucas as a
landlord-killing peeping tom with a Swiss fetish (naked but for his tight,
white Y-fronts) playing an Alpine horn and incongruously perving over Juno
Temple gives you the horn
then you’re in luck, Jonas Åkerlund’s Small Apartments is the film you’ve been waiting for!
Franklin Franklin
(Matt Lucas) is a
reclusive, disturbed man-child with alopecia who dreams of Switzerland and
spends his days wandering around in his pants and blowing his Alpine horn. He lives in a dilapidated LA apartment
building populated by screw-ups and rejects like the drug-addled Tommy Balls (Johnny
Knoxville, who else?) and
the gruff, busybody Mr Allspice (James Caan), spies on his Lolita-esque neighbor Simone (Juno Temple) and receives daily packages in the mail
containing audio tapes and toenail clippings from his insane brother Bernard (James
Marsden) who is under the
spell of perma-tanned, pop psychologist Dr Mennox (Dolph Lundgren).
When he
accidentally kills his repellant, bullying landlord Mr Olivetti (Peter
Stormare) during an
argument about his overdue rent, Franklin panics and (on the advice of his dog!) decides to make it look like Olivetti
committed suicide. BY STABBING
HIM, SHOOTING HIM AND SETTING HIM ON FIRE. Franklin, in case you’re wondering, is no rocket scientist
and the botched attempt arouses the suspicions of dogged fire investigator Burt
Walnut (Billy Crystal). But fate hasn’t finished with Franklin
just yet…
A comedy for
people who find laughter over-rated, Small Apartments is a willfully misanthropic cavalcade of
grotesquerie that not only aspires to cult status but is actively designed to
be the kind of quirky, smugathon that’ll appeal to a select few chin-strokers
who are too cool for school.
Adapted by Chris
Mills from his own novel which won the 23rd Annual International
3-Day Novel Writing Contest, Åkerlund’s film would suggest that Mills probably
polished the book off in one day and spent the other two blowing on his own
special Alpine horn. Having given
us The Prodigy’s Smack
My Bitch Up video and Mena
Suvari’s constipated
speed freak taking a graphically unerotic dump in tweaker Short Cuts, Spun, one could never accuse Åkerlund of subtlety and,
when professional douchebag Johnny Knoxville’s guyliner-wearing stoner is the
closest thing in the film to a relatable, human character, no-one’s about to
start now. Still, Åkerlund has
worked extensively with Madonna so if anyone is an expert on charmless,
unloveable grotesques, it’s probably him.
The oddball
supporting cast are fine and James’ Marsden and Caan are even quite good but Small Apartments is, for better or worse, built upon Lucas
and whether you empathise with his oddball mouth-breather. If you don’t it’s a looooooooong hour and a half. It has some rather obvious points to
make (weirdoes have feelings too, follow your dreams, blah-de-blah…) which it
repeatedly smacks you about the chops with but, ultimately, Small Apartments is a needy, self-satisfied,
attention-seeking film screaming “Look at me, look at me…” like some
Montessori-schooled incubus.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Starring:
Matt Lucas,
Johnny Knoxville, Billy Crystal, Juno Temple, James Marsden, Rebel Wilson,
Saffron Burrows, Rosie Perez, Dolph Lundgren and James Caan
Genres:
Black Comedy
Language:
English
Runtime:
97 minutes
(approx)
Certificate:
15
UK Release Date:
Friday 22nd
March 2013
Rating:
2/5
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