Only a filmmaker as talented as Alex Ross Perry could make a movie as misbegotten as “Golden Exits.” With his past features “Impolex,” “The Color Wheel,” “Listen Up Philip,” and “Queen of Earth,” Perry has established himself as one of American independent cinema’s best young writer-directors, equally interested in the quality of his images and the richness of his characters. He writes witty, incisive dialogue, and hands it over to accomplished casts, filled with actors who can convey the contradictions inherent in Perry’s work — in particular the way he both savages and admires people who are colossally selfish.
But with his latest, Perry has overestimated his gifts for translating the quietly desperate daily lives of neurotic upscale New Yorkers into artful entertainment. As with “Queen of Earth,” “Golden Exits” represents another attempt by the director to re-frame his usual characters and situations within a different genre. “Queen of Earth” had elements of psychological suspense, while “Golden Exits” is an earnest relationship drama in the mold of European masters like Ingmar Bergman and Eric Rohmer. That approach leans too heavy on Perry’s tendency to over-write, and over-explain.
Emily Browning stars in “Golden Exits” as Naomi, an Australian university student who spends a few months in NYC working as an assistant to archivist, Nick (Adam Horowitz). She only knows one person in the city: Buddy (Jason Schwartzman), a family friend she met on a trip to America nearly two decades ago. Not long after she arrives though, she gets to know her boss’s sister-in-law, Gwendolyn (Mary-Louise Parker), a steely businesswoman who’s let her career and her desires take precedence over any long-term relationship. Naomi admires Gwen’s independence, especially in comparison to Nick’s wife Alyssa (Chloë Sevigny) and Buddy’s wife Jess (Analeigh Tipton), who both seem to spend their nights home alone, fretting over what — or who — their husbands are doing. And they have reason to worry too, since both Nick and Buddy are circling Naomi, letting her know in not-so-subtle ways that they could maybe be persuaded into having an affair.
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The other major player in “Golden Exits” is Sam (Lily Rabe), Jess’s sister, who works as a personal assistant for Gwen and is persistently disappointed that she’s in her mid-30s and still unattached. Sam gives the speech that explains the movie’s title, when she offers up her theory that most of our relationships have a perfect ending that we’re all working toward, but that family relationships just go on and on, whether we’re happy with them or not. This is in part what the film is about, and it’s the material that Perry handles best. Not all the characters in “Golden Exits” know each other, but they’re all connected, and they all have very different opinions about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Nick and Sam find Gwen annoying, while Naomi likes her honesty. The two pairs of sisters are loving and supportive when they’re together, but gripe about each other in private. And so on.
The “can’t pick your family” theme though mostly gets buried by how much time Perry spends on Nick and Buddy’s separate pursuits of Naomi. “Golden Exits” is fairly well-observed when it comes to the awkwardness of of these half-courtships, and how they complicate work (in Nick’s case) and friendship (in Buddy’s). But because the plot plays out over the course of about two months, there’s a lot of repetition of scenes where these dudes contemplate throwing their marriages away for a fling with an Australian. Meanwhile, Perry keeps cutting back to shots of Alyssa and Jess, home alone and looking sad.
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“Golden Exits” looks gorgeous, shot on film by gifted cinematographer Sean Price Williams. But it lacks any kind of narrative momentum, and quickly falls into a deadening pattern: a scene of muted conflict, a few insert shots of New York, and repeat, all underscored by nearly wall-to-wall wistful symphonic music. The movie then craters in its final half-hour, as character after character delivers long speeches about their lives and beliefs that sound like the expository pages of a novel read aloud.
The cast here is game, and Perry’s intentions are good. There’s no reason to believe he won’t follow “Golden Exits” up with something as strong as what he’s made before. But this particular film is just a collection of half-realized ideas and characters, presented fairly plainly. Even the title is unnecessarily pretentious. Sam talks about perfect endings. Perry changes it to “Golden Exits.” The sentiment remains mundane. [C-]
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