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The Extra Man, the third narrative feature by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, returns the directing/writing duo to the fringes, a place where they seemed quite comfortable in their breakout hit American Splendor. The characters that Pulcini and Berman follow for much of their newest film, based on Jonathan Ames's novel (which the writer adapted along with the directors), are not actual people like Harvey Pekar, the late comic writer and music critic who was the focus of Splendor, but I bet a trip to the Bowery would scare up some close approximations. The protagonists of The Extra Man are unique and often surprisingly perverse, which is certainly more than can be said about anything in Pulcini and Berman's last film, the dreadful Nanny Diaries.
The Extra Man's supremacy over Nanny, however, should not be taken as a sign that the duo is back to creating exciting and evocative work. Rather, the film goes about relating sincerely odd characters in a resoundingly ordinary way, in many ways the very antithesis of the multiplying forms and personae within Splendor. Certainly, characters like Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline) and Louis Ives (Paul Dano) deserve a more eclectic pallet: We meet poor Ives not long before he is caught fondling a brassiere in public, an attempt to coalesce his desire to be both a woman and a Gatsby-esque playboy.
Dismissed from his cushy professorship at a Princeton prep school, Ives finds cheap shelter in Manhattan with Harrison, a demented erstwhile playwright who pays his bills by escorting wealthy octogenarians to art shows and fetching them dinner from greasy chicken joints. A vicious misogynist and lover of the opera, Harrison yammers on about his stolen masterpiece, his shy neighbor with a knack for fixing cars (John C. Reilly) and his winter home in Florida, which he enlists Louis to help secure when his most wealthy contributor (Marion Seldes) tires of his peculiarities. As Henry teaches him lessons about the titular profession, Louis takes a job in sales at a Green magazine and develops a crush on a flighty, tree-hugging co-worker (Katie Holmes). But this minor infatuation does not stop young Ives from visiting trannie bars or dressing up in women's lingerie, two things in direct conflict with house rules that Henry had stated from the outset.
The Extra Man indeed dabbles in some kind of cockeyed nostalgia for true oddballs, rather than quirky teens or half-assed misfits. When the film stays with Dano and Kline, both playing to their strong suits, there is a sincere feeling of partnership and loneliness cured; the reliable Reilly and the fantastic Celia Weston, as an old friend of Henry, add to this small community. But the inherent perversity of these characters never resonates past the humor of the given situation: As amusing as it is to watch Kevin Kline give a lesson on how to piss in public without anyone being the wiser, it serves little purpose beyond being funny and adds little dimension to two complex characters.
Unlike the Pekar of American Splendor, Harrison and Ives remain at a distance from us, cheapening both the characters and the two solid central performances. Aimless both in tone and story, The Extra Man might also have benefited from a healthy edit. Holmes is a fine performer, as usual, but her storyline is completely superfluous; the heart of the film is with those unwanted others who walk the streets and subway cars. Sadly, Pulcini and Berman have done exactly what so many directors before them have done, and what I suspect they were desperately trying not to do: Kept bona fide New York loons behind the display case.
The Extra Man's supremacy over Nanny, however, should not be taken as a sign that the duo is back to creating exciting and evocative work. Rather, the film goes about relating sincerely odd characters in a resoundingly ordinary way, in many ways the very antithesis of the multiplying forms and personae within Splendor. Certainly, characters like Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline) and Louis Ives (Paul Dano) deserve a more eclectic pallet: We meet poor Ives not long before he is caught fondling a brassiere in public, an attempt to coalesce his desire to be both a woman and a Gatsby-esque playboy.
Dismissed from his cushy professorship at a Princeton prep school, Ives finds cheap shelter in Manhattan with Harrison, a demented erstwhile playwright who pays his bills by escorting wealthy octogenarians to art shows and fetching them dinner from greasy chicken joints. A vicious misogynist and lover of the opera, Harrison yammers on about his stolen masterpiece, his shy neighbor with a knack for fixing cars (John C. Reilly) and his winter home in Florida, which he enlists Louis to help secure when his most wealthy contributor (Marion Seldes) tires of his peculiarities. As Henry teaches him lessons about the titular profession, Louis takes a job in sales at a Green magazine and develops a crush on a flighty, tree-hugging co-worker (Katie Holmes). But this minor infatuation does not stop young Ives from visiting trannie bars or dressing up in women's lingerie, two things in direct conflict with house rules that Henry had stated from the outset.
The Extra Man indeed dabbles in some kind of cockeyed nostalgia for true oddballs, rather than quirky teens or half-assed misfits. When the film stays with Dano and Kline, both playing to their strong suits, there is a sincere feeling of partnership and loneliness cured; the reliable Reilly and the fantastic Celia Weston, as an old friend of Henry, add to this small community. But the inherent perversity of these characters never resonates past the humor of the given situation: As amusing as it is to watch Kevin Kline give a lesson on how to piss in public without anyone being the wiser, it serves little purpose beyond being funny and adds little dimension to two complex characters.
Unlike the Pekar of American Splendor, Harrison and Ives remain at a distance from us, cheapening both the characters and the two solid central performances. Aimless both in tone and story, The Extra Man might also have benefited from a healthy edit. Holmes is a fine performer, as usual, but her storyline is completely superfluous; the heart of the film is with those unwanted others who walk the streets and subway cars. Sadly, Pulcini and Berman have done exactly what so many directors before them have done, and what I suspect they were desperately trying not to do: Kept bona fide New York loons behind the display case.
