SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS (Fox Searchlight) Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Corrigan. Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins. Producers: Michael Nozik and Stan Wlodokowski. Director: Tamara Jenkins. MPAA Rating: R (adult themes, nudity, sexual situations, profanity) Running Time: 91 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Sometimes I just want to shake a film-maker who doesn't seem to understand the strengths of her own story. Take Tamara Jenkins, for example, the first time writer/director behind SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS. Her tale centers around the Abramowitz family, a semi-dysfunctional clan living in Southern California circa 1976. Papa Murray (Alan Arkin) is a no-luck car salesman coping with persistent financial short-falls and being a single parent to his three children, most problematic his only daughter, 14-year-old Vivian (Natasha Lyonne). Vivian is having enough trouble dealing with typical teenage problems, like her suddenly daunting breast size, without the added stress of moving from apartment to apartment every few months to stay one step ahead of eviction.
The mid-70s setting at first seems fairly arbitrary, a token attempt at period color, but eventually the two main characters deepen the resonance of the time. Murray, the 65-year-old father of three young children, is still very much a 1950s-style father, evidenced by a throwaway scene in which he summons a black waiter in a restaurant with a racial slur. He defines his success as a father by his ability to provide for his family, and makes it his goal to live in an area which will still allow his children to go to the best schools (the "slums" of Beverly Hills described in the title). He certainly can't be the sensitive, worldy parent Vivian needs as she begins exploring her sexuality in a time light years removed from Murray's adolescence. How can you discuss sex with a dad who insists that you wear a bra with a halter top?
That relationship forms the foundation for a solid story where the laughs could have come from simple character interaction. The two lead performances are earnest and sympathetic, showing a strained affection between father and daughter where communication is a challenge at best. Lyonne in particular pulls off some difficult scenes of teenage sexual experimentation without a hint of exploitativeness, ably assisted by Kevin Corrigan as the next door neighbor with whom she experiments.
Why, then, must Jenkins get hyper-quirky on us by introducing Vivian's free-spirited older cousin Rita (Marisa Tomei), a troubled, pregnant, recovering drug addict who comes to stay with Murray's family? There's nothing faintly interesting or real about Rita or her problems; they're like the shenanigans of a wacky relative on a television sit-com. Every scene with Tomei is an over-the-top distraction, turning a low-key character study into forced farce. It's hard to take SLUMS seriously when a tearful exchange between Vivian and Rita involves a gobbledegook secret childhood language.
It's not as though Jenkins needed to pad the running time because there wasn't anything more substantial with which to fill it. She never quite explains why Vivian's mother is never discussed, never quite explains what happened to the restaurant Murray once ran successfully, never quite gives fully rounded personalities to Vivan's two brothers (David Krumholtz and Eli Marienthal). There's enough going on in that slightly radioactive nuclear famliy to fill a feature film without bringing in Crazy Cousin Rita. SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS draws you in with some sensitive observations about a family trying to cope with a profound generation gap, as well as with a breakout performance by the unconventionally fetching Lyonne. Then, it starts pushing you away with gratuitous eccentricity. I wish Jenkins had showed more faith in Murray and Vivian. Like the Abramowitzes themselves, she doesn't seem to know how good she really has it.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 rolling Hills: 6.
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