This is a story about a writer played by Jeff Daniels (Dumb and Dumber, 101 Dalmatians) with serious social anxiety issues trying to make progress on his new book. Lisa Kudrow (the show Friends) plays his successful doctor wife is awkward and she works back near their normal residence during the week and visits him on weekends. Their marriage is a bit awkward and/or strained due in no small part to his mental emotional issues and his imaginary friend, Captain Excellent, played by Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder, Green Lantern, The Nines) whose role is to keep Daniels from making dangerous decisions. Daniels begins a strange and awkward interaction with a local high school girl played by Emma Stone (Zombieland, Superbad).
In addition to the aforementioned cast, Keiran Culken (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Igby Goes Down) plays Stone’s dark, depressed and hopelessly-stricken-with-unrequited-love lifelong friend. The general concept of the movie sounded pretty cool to me, but the cast alone would make me watch it because I’m a pretty big fan of most of these actors (other than Kudrow, who I feel lukewarm about).
Kudrow, actually did well in this role, and it might be the most impressive from the admittedly limited selection I’ve seen from her career. Daniels plays his usual neurotic self, although a little more so, and Stone brought her usual snarky wit, although a bit darker than usual. Both characters I found very endearing, even if I don’t admire all of their decisions or situations. Reynolds’ character was peppered throughout and I think the amount of him was appropriately much and little considering the inherent loud-salience of a superhero imaginary friend. While Captain Excellent is not as huge a part of the film as you might imagine based on the box art, his presence added a ton to the quality of the piece. The color palette tended toward browns (with the obvious exception of the Captain), which I felt was conducive to the story and it's general emotional feel. Visual quality in terms of film stock and in set design was good, and the musical score blended into the background so I didn't really notice it consciously.
Overall I found the film to be very intelligent and I’m really glad I watched it. Also it has great pay-offs by the end. I don’t know the odds of watching it a second time other than if I’m sitting a friend down to see it… and the reason is that it’s got some pretty dark parts. It’s sad and it’s aggravating for anyone who has struggled with awkwardness themselves. For example, if you had a hard time sitting through Punch-Drunk Love, you might want to keep that in mind before watching this movie. I often like fiction stories about writers (Wonder Boys, Adaptation, The Shining... pretty much anything by Stephen King really) and that’s possibly because you can most effectively write what you know about, and writers tend to know about writing; also because the story is rarely about a guy just sitting in front of a typewriter all day, It’s usually got some really interesting spin on it. If you liked Adaptation, then I think you’ll like this. The plot (other than the writer struggle aspect) doesn’t really have many similarities, but it struck a lot of the same tones feeling-wise. For me, it’s 4-4.5 stars.
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