Let’s forget for a paragraph that “Fourth of July” is co-written and directed by Louis C.K, whatever that latter fact means to you. Set largely at a family reunion in Maine, this story is about a son breaking the patterns that parents can engrain in us, especially when it comes to withheld emotions. It’s about its hero, a New York City-living jazz pianist and recovering alcoholic, trying to blaze a trail to a healthier relationship with his parents he feels distant from. He gears up to say that he never felt loved by them, an accusation that has been stuck in his throat during past reunions. “Fourth of July” gets its name from the explosion that awaits, and the independence it preaches can come from such an emotional revelation. It’s a noble idea for a story, but it proves to be clearly not enough to fill even 90 minutes.
Now, let’s remember that it is indeed directed by Louis C.K., as its existence does show him trying to get back in the public eye after sexual misconduct allegations, not to mention his previous maligned directorial effort “I Love You, Daddy,” in which one of his characters does just what he had been accused of. C.K. aims his interest in people and provocation to watching some guy more or less find freedom in saying “fuck this” to his family; the angst here is against bad emotional patterns. It’s all part of a too-quaint, only sometimes poignant movie that offers comedy only selectively. “Fourth of July” is not very funny whenever it tries to be, and it’s not very emotional despite being emotionally intelligent. But it is indeed a new Louis C.K. movie now playing in select theaters.
C.K. plays a therapist in “Fourth of July,” on-screen for maybe five minutes total. His co-writer Joe List is one of his patients, and the guy we’re stuck with. Jeffy is dreading this trip back to his family in Maine and looking to finally confront them in order to get closure he can take into possible parenthood with his wife Beth (Sarah Tollemache). “I’m gonna confront my family,” he keeps saying in the movie’s early-on junky dialogue. Jeffy also has almost three years of sobriety under his belt, another source of positive reinforcement that he lets guide him as he goes into the trenches of the family reunion. That might make this movie sound more enticing than it already is, because “Fourth of July” then struggles to fashion a remotely sharp conflict with all of its pieces.
More low-key than one might expect, “Fourth of July” feels more airless than it should. It’s like any time we watch Jeffy “play” jazz piano, presenting the idea of an artful concept that isn’t there and obviously so. Working as editor, C.K. more or less creates a mundane volley between talking heads in his many conversation scenes, making for one mild, anti-revelatory scene after the next. List’s sometimes stiff and generically neurotic performance only highlights this more, and there are extended passages where “Fourth of July” lays flat like the 2000s indies we used to batch as “mumblecore.”
Jeffy gets up to the cabin, and is quickly engulfed by the loudness of his different family members; eavesdropping, cigar-smoking aunts and uncles who drink from the movie’s main sponsor, Bud Light (one of them even says “This Bud’s For You”). They’re broad characters, and reliable goofy side characters for homophobic, racist, non-PC jokes as scripts usually treat New Englanders. And for how much they all antagonize Jeffy (“Jazz, more like jizz!” they say as Jeffy plays piano) they don’t create a thick enough sense of a tense atmosphere; there is no edge to them. They’re harmless. The best element about their presence is how the film’s costume design nails a New Englander’s clothing dedication, like how one character is wearing an All Star Game Fenway Park ’99 polo shirt.
C.K. does some people-watching for long stints of the reunion, the same way that Woody Allen would take his characters out of the city and see what low-key dramas they’d get into in Connecticut or wherever. It’s clear that when C.K. talked about the excitement of directing again this must have been some of the appeal: there are numerous scenes in which he blocks Jeffy’s family members so that there are people and stuff in both the foreground and background. But what happens from the script is less interesting than how the images are constructed.
The most expressive face of the family belongs to that of Jeffy’s dad (Robert Walsh), who gets many silent, contemplative, punctuating close-ups during these moments of family tension, especially after Jeffy finally explodes. But the movie is a little lost in how to handle this father with poignancy, as it gives him an extended moment later on that follows him around the home, and overstays its welcome. C.K. uses him as a type of half-considered turning point, but he has a better line earlier that suggests thoughtfulness in his construction: “My son knows I love him, just like I know my dad loves me.” And he has more nuanced handling than Mom (Paula Plum), who simply shuts down, feeling she is owed an apology after Jeffy finally speaks his mind.
What could be poignant or even interesting about “Fourth of July” is lost by its own choices. At least its therapy and sober-brain offer a couple gems:““Everything will be OK, and ifisn’tt OK,that’lll be ok”” And,““Say what you mean, justdon’tt make it mean”” This movie, a forgettable indie aside from who directed it, offers sentiment, and its existence.That’ss about it. Whether one is revolted or delighted by another C.K. production,““Fourth of Jul”” is a dud. [C-]