MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN (Jason Reitman). 119 minutes. Opens Friday (October 3). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
Jason Reitman’s latest is a partly successful Crash-like tale of interconnected people in a small Texas community who are distanced from their sexuality and emotions.
Based on Chad Kultgen’s dark novel, it’s very uneven. Some stories work: that of a depressed kid (Ansel Elgort) who gives up on football and a well-meaning mother (Judy Greer) who’s exploiting her daughter’s beauty for cash to help her Hollywood dreams.
A storyline involving Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt as a married couple looking to cheat is fine until the end. Subplots involving Jennifer Garner’s overbearing mother and an anorexic girl looking for acceptance add nothing, though.
Lines about Carl Sagan and our place in the universe (narrated by Emma Thompson) make everything a bit too on the nose in an already obvious movie.
But Elgort and Greer raise the material so much, I wish the whole movie were just about their characters.
