Igby Goes Down (2002)

Seventeen-year-old Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) comes from a wealthy but dysfunctional family. His mother (Susan Sarandon) is a pill-popping lunatic, his brother (Ryan Phillipe) is a collegiate, money-obsessed snob, and his father (Bill Pullman) is a hospitalized schizophrenic. After Igby is expelled from boarding school, his mother sends him to a military academy where he is brutalized by the other kids. He escapes to the Hamptons, where he meets Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), an enigmatic and artistic vegetarian on a break from Bennington College. Igby then goes to New York, where he holes up in the loft of...
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the heroin-addicted mistress (Amanda Peet) of his reptilian godfather D.H. (Jeff Goldblum). He once again runs into Sookie, and the two begin an affair, which eventually falls apart as Igby realizes that he has never had anyone to trust, and he decides to try and change his life for the better.

Burr Steers' impressive debut is clearly inspired by THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, though his film takes more pains to graphically show the familial reasons for its young protagonist's instability. At times a black comedy and sometimes something darker, IGBY creates a world where everyone's warmth and humanity is inversely proportional to their wealth--and most of the characters have money to spare. Culkin deftly carries an altogether impressive cast filled with strong performances.
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Igby Slocumb, een rebellerende 17-jarige jongen, is constant in strijd met zijn familie. Hij denkt dat er iets beters te vinden moet zijn in het leven, en besluit op zoek te gaan. Hij komt terecht in de Boheemse onderwereld van Manhattan.

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The cynical son of an upper-class New York family bedeviled by booze, pills and mental illness strikes out on his own in this caustic, darkly comic drama. Igby Slocomb (Kieran Culkin) and his older brother, Oliver (Ryan Phillippe), are are in the process of killing their mother, Mimi (Susan Sarandon). Flashbacks delineate Igby's troubled childhood: Speed-freak Mimi and her depressed husband, Jason (Bill Pullman), snipe at each other endlessly until Jason attempts suicide before Igby's very eyes and takes up residence in a mental hospital. Igby grows into a rebellious youth, gets kicked out of several boarding sch...
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ools and ends up in a hellish military academy. After one failed escape attempt, he heads to New York City and hides out in the apartment of Rachel (Amanda Peet), the heroin-addled mistress of his godfather, D.H. (Jeff Goldblum). Oliver locates the young scoundrel and informs him that Mimi is suffering from cancer. Unperturbed, Igby continues his slacker existence -- and his romance with Sookie (Claire Danes), a hipper-than-thou undergraduate who finds herself torn between Igby and Oliver. As Igby gets drawn further into the mind games and hypocrisy of the adult world, his already jaded outlook grows even darker. He takes to dealing smack and hanging out with a cross-dressing performance "artist" (Jared Harris). Ultimately, though, Mimi's impending death draws him back into the family fold for unexpected revelations and realizations. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Burr Steers, Igby Goes Down features Rory Culkin, Kieran's brother, as the young Igby.
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