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Dummy (2003)
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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:23
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.2/10
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Television
Synopsis:
Family, friendship and romance find a voice in Dummy, the smartly offbeat and charming debut comedy from writer and director Greg Pritikin. Steven Schoichet (Adrien Brody, Academy Award® winner...
Family, friendship and romance find a voice in Dummy, the smartly offbeat and charming debut comedy from writer and director Greg Pritikin. Steven Schoichet (Adrien Brody, Academy Award® winner for The Pianist) is browbeaten at every turn, by his family, his dead-end job, the faceless suburb where he still lives at home. That is until he decides to make a change. Ventriloquism. Hey, a dream’s a dream.
His family barely pays him enough attention to even dismiss the idea – his mother (Jessica Walter, Slums of Beverly Hills) is only concerned that he eat something, and his father (Ron Liebman, Tony Award® winner for “Angels In America”) only thinks of his model ships. Steven’s sister (Illeana Douglas, Grace of My Heart) recently broke off her engagement to an unstable accountant (Jared Harris, Happiness), which makes her career as a wedding planner an emotional minefield. His only supporter is neighbor Fangora (Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil) – really it’s Fanny, but that’s not very punk – who has her own aspirations to stardom.
After Steven loses his job, things actually start to turn around. He falls for his counselor at the unemployment office (Vera Farmiga, Fifteen Minutes), and through the best efforts of Steven and the little friend on his knee, good things start to happen for everyone around him. A restraining order leads to new love, a rock band learns Yiddish, and everything clicks into place at somebody else’s wedding. Funny, winsome, quick-witted, and brave – this Dummy is pretty sharp. -- © Artisan Pictures
Starring: Adrien Brody, Milla Jovovich, Illeana Douglas, Vera Farmiga
Starring: Adrien Brody, Milla Jovovich, Illeana Douglas, Vera Farmiga, Jessica Walter, Ron Liebman, Jared Harris
Director: Gregory Pritikin
Director: Gregory Pritikin
Screenwriter: Gregory Pritikin
Producer: Bob Fagan, Richard Temtchine
Composer: Paul Wallfisch
Studio: Artisan Entertainment
Reviews for Dummy
The result is the kind of oddball independent film that's almost a parody of the genre.
Like its mini-mouthpiece, as pleasantly entertaining as Dummy often is, this ultimately hollow film sounds a few too many wooden notes and creaky jokes.
It's a sweetly sad and sadly funny tale, conceived with quirky sensitivity, but, though its actors are adept, it only just hangs together, like a sitcom still in rehearsal stages.
Brody ... is the movie's weakest link, turning in a performance almost as wooden as the doll that sits on his knee.
Pritikin ... serves up the sort of shrill 'satire' of middle-class Jewish vulgarity in which the mere mention of words like 'brisket' and 'klezmer' is automatically presumed to be hilarious.
Definitely lives down to its name -- you can see the lips moving on this wooden thing.
Dummy might have been a better movie if Greg Pritikin had done a few more rewrites on his script, and if he'd had more than a few weeks in which to shoot it.
What could have been a biting dark comedy is, instead, uninspired and generic.
Pritikin's shrewd comedy-drama catches a fine flock of family emotions on the wing, and not the over-exposed ones.
This is a great date movie - it's funny, sweet, and just the right amount of zaniness to keep it from being too sappy.
A mildly engaging addition to that curious sub-genre of American independent filmmaking, the whimsical comedy of Long Island alienation.
Has many of the qualities comedy movie fans have been missing in cinema today: charm, wit, romance and winning performances across the board.
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