BRIGSBY BEAR (2017)
Directed by Dave
McCary
Sony Pictures
Classic, 97 minutes, PG-13 (brief sexuality)
★★★
Brigsby Bear is a
strange, but charming film that scarcely stretched its costumed paws before
being sent back to the den. I get it; it's the kind of movie you either take to
immediately, or exclaim, "WTF?" and turn it off before the TV is even
warm. What is it, exactly?
That's hard to say. At times it seems as if it’s a movie
about teens that was hijacked by them midway through; at others it feels like
an afternoon special, or perhaps a really offbeat Disney project. In my mind,
it’s the movie equivalent of music by Flight of the Conchords or They Mighty Be
Giants: zany, often ridiculous, and yet strangely affecting. I lump it with
idiosyncratic films such as Eagle vs.
Shark, The Price of Milk, and Lost in
Paris. This is to say, Brigsby Bear
has its charms, but don’t expect Citizen
Kane.
Here’s the setup: James (SNL’s
Kyle Mooney) lives in a desert biodome-like structure that’s half buried in
the Utah desert. He has been told by his “parents,” Ted (Mark Hamill) and April
(Jane Adams), that Earth’s air has been poisoned, that he should seldom venture
outside, and that he can never do so without a gas mask, the likes of which he
sees Ted don every time he drives off. James’ contact with the world is largely
through VCR cassettes of “Brigsby Bear,” a sort of cut-rate children’s sci-fi
educational show whose titular hero is a man dressed in a cartoonish bear
costume with a papier-mâché head. There are math and science lessons embedded
into the plots, but these mainly involve Brigsby’s adventures with the Smiles
twins in thwarting the plans of an animated and personified sun to destroy the
world. Never mind that the whole thing is cheesier than Wisconsin and the
acting so stiff it makes Season One of Dr.
Who look like Shakespeare, insofar as James knows, Brigsby is real and has
an audience of millions.
James’ world is blown apart when law enforcement officials
raid the compound, shackle Ted and April, and take James away to meet Greg and Louise
Pope, the biological parents from whom he was kidnapped as an infant. He even
has a sister, the largely disinterested Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins). Here’s the
serious part of the film: How do you socialize what is essentially a feral
child trapped in a 24-year-old body? After all, he’s only just learned he can
breathe the air, so he has little interest in the beach, basketball, board
games, and other such ‘family’ pursuits. What he really wants is access to the
new cassettes of “Brigsby Bear.” They, of course, don’t exist; it was Ted in
the outfit all those years, but through various plot devices I won’t reveal, he
gets a VCR and a few back episodes. He also falls in with his sister’s teenaged
friends, one of whom digitizes them and, viola! Brigsby is a YouTube sensation.
Courtesy of those same age-inappropriate friends, Brigsby Bear: The Movie is on and along the way James has lots to
learn: about communications, sex, controlled substances, and what a bad idea it
is to research making explosive devices.
Again, this is either all endearing and delightful or
puerile and stupid—depending upon your point of view. The film also stars Claire
Danes as James’ psychiatrist, and Greg Kinnear as a cop who misses his college
thespian ways. Simpkins is engaging as James’ sister, as is Jorge Lendeborg,
Jr. as Spencer, the teen who (sort of) gets James. If you’re a film snob and
can’t abide sentimentality, goofiness, or scripts with more holes than a fish
net, steer clear of Brigsby Bear. As
for the rest of you, give it a try. If you like it, you’re welcome; if not and
you suspect I have taken leave of my senses, I understand.
Rob Weir
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