Landline

A certain low-key, unfussy charm breathes some life into LANDLINE as it ticks off the boxes of the standard indie dramedy. Included in this package: one dysfunctional middle-class family, one emotionally arrested couple struggling with adult relationships, one rebellious teen coming of age in an explosion of retro signifiers (Gen X references abound). It's well acted and bitingly funny, but struggles to come across as cinematic, while splitting its focus into pieces too small to fully savor.

It's basically that stupidly uptempo millennial crap you see on TV and Netflix these days, but feature-length and set in the 1990s. White bourgeois monogamists cheating on each other and making scenes of it.I wouldn't call these things dramedies... They're more like a wishy-washy worst of both worlds, neither affecting nor funny.

Jenny Slate continues to wow in her transition to film. Took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize this film is set in 1995. "Oh, now the title makes sense," goes my idiot brain.

This is a movie that has a clear vision of what it wants to be, but doesn't fully understand how to execute it. I generally like the cast, especially Jenny Slate, but the characters, their dynamics, and plot are an unfocused mess. For every self assured decision the film makes, it follows it up with something completely awkward. Ultimately this feels like it should have been a tv show. Doing so would have given things more time to develop and eventually settle into something more fully realized.

A thorough examination of two generation's worth of relationship complexities.

bildik hikayenin bildik bir versiyonu, ama baktığı zamana bugünün ironik, keskin ve net-miş gibi gözüken tavrıyla değil, dönemin bol kıyafetli ve kıskanmalı-değil-imrenmeli anlayışıyla bakıyor. bu açıdan eski ve alışılmış olmasına rağmen özel bir şey sunmayı başarabiliyor.

Somewhat of a disappointment after the amazing Obvious Child, but still watchable and Jenny Slate is a national treasure.

Landline is a mediocre dramedy about a bunch of bad people doing bad things to each other before, eventually, learning that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't do that as much, possibly. Individuals and relationships are messy, but to tolerate a movie like this one, we need some deeper insight, or more comedy, or an ending that doesn't contradictorily want to tie everything up with a pretty little bow. It isn't bad, and the actors are terrific, but it's not a particularly strong movie.