Thunder Road (2018, Jim Cummings) (Patreon)

47/100

Pretty basic problem here: I don't particularly enjoy Cummings' character (in conception more than execution; he's a good actor), and the entire film—expanded from a short that I clearly wouldn't have liked much either, given that it's reportedly been faithfully replicated as the feature's opening setpiece—is built around this dude's unique brand of cringe. Said brand is more or less the opposite of fearless, rooting outrageous behavior not in sheer awfulness (à la Ricky Gervais) or in overweening self-absorption (see: any early Albert Brooks film) but in Jim Arnaud's genuine grief and heartbreak. It's as if Michael Scott had been the protagonist of Kramer vs. Kramer. Sounds irresistible on paper, but it's hard (for me, at least) to laugh at someone who's embarrassing himself in ways that simultaneously inspire a sense of protectiveness, which seems to be precisely what Cummings is striving for. The eulogy may have put me in the wrong headspace due to my having first seen "Free Churro," the BoJack Horseman episode devoted almost entirely to BoJack eulogizing his mother; it's entirely possible that Cummings' short (made two years earlier) influenced or perhaps even directly inspired Bob-Waksberg, but one of these solo showcases begs for sympathy and the other decidedly does not. If I'm gonna watch someone perform hilariously bad interpretive dance in front of a coffin to a Springsteen song that isn't even playing, I don't want to see him comforting his young daughter mid-routine, or repeatedly be consumed by uncomfortably real crying jags. Either be sincere or find truth in broad comic exaggeration. Don't try to do both at the same time. (Longtime readers will recognize "either/don't do both" as a recurring argument in my mixed-to-negative reviews. It's an epidemic.)

What fascinates and befuddles me about this film is the dramatic tonal shift that occurs whenever Jim is in the presence of a blood relative. All of the scenes involving his daughter are superb—partly because Kendal Farr does beautifully truculent work, but mostly because Cummings dials Jim's manic qualities way back when he's around Crystal. The performance is still heightened, but now in a credibly human register; the two of them share an authentic give-and-take that's completely missing from, say, the scene in which Jim has dinner at his partner's house (a scene that mostly consists of the family shooting each other concerned looks in response to Jim, even when he's not saying or doing anything especially odd; Nate, the partner, has zero coherence as a character in general, serving whatever function a given moment requires). The closest I came to loving this movie was when Crystal asks her dad to sit down opposite her and then puts her hands up again for the slap game that he'd already proved himself incapable of playing, whereupon they execute it perfectly—a benign fantasy that speaks to a real bond between them. One might argue that a man would behave differently with his child than with anyone else...except that Cummings returns to that mode when Jim visits his sister, another terrific scene that feels like it belongs to a totally separate film. (One that I'd have liked considerably more than I do this one, needless to say.) At the end of that scene, Jim retrieves a bag that he'd stashed in her bushes, wordlessly revealing that he'd planned to ask if he could stay with her for a while (or had hoped that she might offer)—a lovely touch that's the second-closest I came to loving this movie. Most of Thunder Road, however, plays as if we'd seen him stash the bag there before he went inside and then watched him launch into a mortifying sob story meant to secure himself an invitation. It's just too needy for my taste—cringe comedy "written, directed and performed by" (per the credits) someone who's terrified that viewers might dislike his alter ego. So much so, in fact, that even Jim's seemingly obnoxious criticisms of his soon-to-be-ex-wife turn out to be horrifically justified. Show a little gumption, man.