‘Ex-Husbands’ Review: Griffin Dunne Anchors Multi-Generational Story Of Male Angst Over Broken Relationships – Hamptons Film Festival
After a world premiere at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and its North American premiere over the weekend at the Hamptons International Film Festival, Noah Pritzker’s (Quitters) second film goes for a mix of Woody Allen, John Cassavetes, Paul Mazursky, Noah Baumbach and other white male filmmakers, past and present, who enjoy basking in the midlife marital crisis in which many guys find themselves trapped. While not on the level of those acclaimed filmmakers, in this case, Pritzker manages to cast his net wider into an early-, mid-, and late-life crisis over three generations of the men in the Pearce clan.
The result is an engaging indie exercise that’s for sale to any distributor who finds promise in a premise that might be a tough sell for mainstream buyers despite a game cast that lifts it up a notch or two. Art houses would seem to be its theatrical future, if not PVOD.
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As the film opens, we meet Peter Pearce (Griffin Dunne) sitting in a movie theater with his 85-year-old father Simon (Richard Benjamin), who uses their wives’ temporary absence to tell his middle-aged son he is planning to leave his wife after 65 years of marriage, figuring he has another good “25 years or so” to sow some more wild oats. Peter tries to inform him that might not exactly be the correct mathematical calculation, but nevertheless the conversation ends when the wives return with popcorn and the movie begins. Nearby outside we meet Peter’s son Nick (James Norton) as he tries to put the moves on a very good-looking woman he has just met.
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Cut to six years later, and Peter visits Simon in a nursing home where the now-91-year-old sits incommunicado in a corner unable to complete a sentence, Nick is engaged to be married to that woman, and Peter now is going through a divorce after 35 years of marriage to Maria (Rosanna Arquette). In his own depressive state, he now is planning a weekend getaway to the Mexican resort of Tudum, which coincidentally (?) happens to be the destination of Nick’s bachelor party — a fact he claims he only learns when his younger son Mickey (Miles Heizer), best man and planner of the gathering, finds out his dad’s plan and implores him not to come. Finding he can’t get a refund, Peter decides to go anyway and strolls on to the same plane where his two sons are visibly upset when he shows up. Unbeknownst to Peter and Mickey, however, is that Nick carries his own secret that he and his fiancée have actually just broken up, but he didn’t want to spoil the fun for his friends who are heading to the resort location for the celebration.
Pritzker zeroes in on the (un)romantic woes of all three Pearce men as they tackle the realities of life crashing around them. Peter meets an old friend who shows off his real estate acumen and also strikes up a casual friendship with the godmother (Eisa Davis) of a bride-to-be at the resort whom he meets at the bar while waiting for the his sons and Nick’s friends, who have encouraged reluctant Nick and Mickey to invite Dad to their dinner. One of the friends turns out to be the dashing older Chilean landscape architect Arroyo (Pedro Fontaine), for whom the recently out but confused Mickey has an attraction that soon turns sexual in the hot tub, even though the bisexual Arroyo has a wife and kids. Meanwhile, Nick becomes more morose by the minute, once a promising genius in school but now working as a waiter in order to pay rent and not too effectively hiding his own heartbreak over losing his intended bride.
There aren’t all that many piercing insights into the male psyche here, even if the premise might invite some. Instead, Pritzker episodically lets us in on the ever-present angst of these men and gets especially good performances from all. Dunne is given a choice leading role as the neurotic center of it, a gift of a part for an actor who always has been a pleasure to watch. Here he even gets a reunion with his After Hours co-star Arquette, even if her screen time is brief. Heizer and Norton both also score points, and it is always a pleasure to see Benjamin, even if his screen time sadly also is limited. Fans of these actors should be pleased, and Ex-Husbands goes down easily.
Producers are Bruce Cohen, Alexandra Byer, Nicolas Celis
Title: Ex-Husbands
Festivals: Hamptons Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival
Sales agent: UTA
Director-screenwriter: Noah Pritzker
Cast: Griffin Dunne, James Norton, Miles Heizer, Rosanna Arquette, Eisa Davis, Richard Benjamin, Pedro Fontaine, Lou Taylor Pucci, John Ventimiglia, Simon Van Buyten, Ian Owens, Echo Kellum, Rachel Zieger-Haag, Zora Casebere, Nate Mann
Running time: 1 hr, 38 mins
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