AKOORIS/IFC Films Walter (Sam Waterston) and his wife (Glenn Close) discuss his pending retirement as a professor.
"Anesthesia" is sincere but numbing.
Heavy-handedness will do that to a film, even one that boasts talents of Sam Waterston, Glenn Close and Kristen Stewart, each in fine form.
This small-scale indie is a group portrait of New Yorkers who are disconnected and in pain — and killing their woes with pharmaceuticals, booze, affairs and other nastier means.
AKOORIS/IFC Films Mickey Sumner (with Corey Stoll) plays a small but pivotal part in "Anesthesia."
Beginning with his title, writer/director/actor Tim Blake Nelson ("O Brother, Where Art Thou") is in overstatement mode. That carries throughout with dialogue that's too blunt, too ornate or both.
Columbia philosophy professor and Upper West Sider Walter Zarrow (Waterston) is the center of the story, which begins as he buys flowers for his wife (Close, seen briefly). On the way home from his last day of teaching, he is brutally attacked. Corey Stoll and Mickey Sumner are a couple who answer his cries for help.
AKOORIS/IFC Films Gretchen Moll (left with Gloria Reuben) gives a solid performance in "Anesthesia."
The plot rewinds a week and eventually moves forward to reveal an interlocking character puzzle a la "Crash." Stewart is the shaky, self-destructive grad student whom Walter has taken under his wing. K. Todd Freeman, intense and focused, is a smart but down-and-out junkie. Nelson and Jessica Hecht are Manhattan spouses dealing with her cancer and their teenaged kids who are experimenting with rebellion, sex and drugs.
And in New Jersey, Mol is a wife and mom who doesn't believe her husband is on the job in China as he claims. She drives their daughters to school and drowns her unhappiness in a bottle. Mol's crisp and unsentimental work brings a few fresh contours to a cliched character.
There's a million stories in the Naked City. Despite solid performances and sustained sobering tone, "Anesthesia" rouses the sensation that we've seen and heard this one before.
jdziemianowicz@nydailynews.com[1]
References
- ^ jdziemianowicz@nydailynews.com (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ movie reviews (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ sam waterston (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ glenn close (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ kristen stewart (www.nydailynews.com)
