Barren and banal lives in Babylon, Long Island, the old stomping ground of first-time filmmaker Eric Mendelsohn. An ensemble piece, meaning that the barrenness and banality are spread as wide as the Mojave. (There is a ready-made poignance about the late Madeline Kahn musing to herself that she still feels inside like a fourteen-year-old.) Around halfway through, a solar eclipse throws a blanket of darkness over the place, and it inexplicably remains there for the duration, a self-conscious "comment" or "metaphor" regarding life in the suburbs: to say so right out loud, to put the line in the mouth of a loudmouth, does not lighten the heavy hand. Nor does it help to have a more sympathetic character dream of making a documentary on his hometown, free of "sarcasm." The ferrous black-and-white photography, gloomy and overcast even before the eclipse, and intermittently frozen in a series of deadpan Ed Ruscha "stills" of filling stations, streetlamps, storefronts, etc., is a mark of distinction in a film in dire need of one. And Edie Falco, of HBO's The Sopranos, brings some bigness into the surrounding smallness: big nose, big mouth, big eyes, big energy. With Aaron Harnick, Bob Dishy, Barbara Barrie, Julie Kavner, Anne Meara. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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