Imaginary Heroes DVD Review:

“Imaginary Heroes” DVD Review: The Pain that Binds

A few missteps aside, Sigourney Weaver’s acting career has been anything but mundane. From grim alien slayer to manic Marxist revolutionary to ditsy Star Trek proxy, her presence is almost a guarantee that something unusual and interesting is afoot. However, the dark comedy/drama “Imaginary Heroes” finds her making waves in plain old suburbia.

There is a long line of dysfunctional family dramas, each intent on adding its own exclamation mark on the particular malaise of its generation. Many of these are driven by characters that are simply obnoxious or flawed. The teenager rebels because that’s what kids do, dad’s out of touch because he lives at the office, etc. In “Imaginary Heroes” the characters and their motivation is much more genuine. It’s not that these people are naturally hard to get along with but that they are all scarred by emotional trauma. This gives the film a level of believability that allows us to indulge its flights of fanciful humor. With strong performances and excellent dialogue the film is ever mischievously uncovering the anarchic thoughts and actions that belie domestic calm. It bogs down a little in the middle, but opens and closes strongly.

Star college swimmer Matt Travis (Kip Purdue) is the best at what he does, but absolutely loathes it and one day commits suicide. His family struggles to deal with the loss. His mother Sandy (Sigourney Weaver), with her daughter Penny already living away from home, is prematurely overcome with empty nest syndrome and bonds even further with her youngest Tim. She awkwardly tries to rekindle an ancient marijuana habit, and flirts with a checkout clerk. Father Ben (Jeff Daniels) is horribly depressed over the loss of his favorite child, and withdraws into himself and pills. He insists that Sandy prepare a plate for Matt at dinner every night. The couple is badly estranged and seems to have been so for a long time. Tim (Emile Hirsch) tries to deal not only with the loss of his brother but also with the implosion of his family and his father’s curious contempt. Surrounded by knee jerk condolences at high school, he seeks solace in the company of his delinquent friend and neighbor Kyle, with whom he does community service, attends parties, and consumes various narcotics. Sandy feels constantly watched by Kyle’s mother, whom Sandy publicly regards with contempt but perhaps secretly envies her joie de vivre. When a car accident lands Tim in the hospital, Sandy is alarmed to learn that his body was already covered with mysterious bruises. This proves to be a clue not only to what threatens to drive the players apart, but also to what binds them together.

Although the film seems at first intent on exploring dysfunctional suburbia, it’s later revealed that many of the Travis’s issues are due to a rather unique situation. As for more universal themes, much thought is given to the nature of heroism. Who are our everyday heroes, can we be like them and would we really want to? Nearly all the principals perform superpower-free acts of heroism, made no less impressive by their extreme ordinariness. The other overpowering theme is what seems to be an out of control drug binge in suburbia. Maybe my neighborhood was a little square, for I can hardly believe that it contained as much toking, drinking, and pill popping as we see here. If this were a real suburb it’d be locked in a vicious gang war over distribution rights.

Weaver and Hirsch share the spotlight as the primary leads. Strong, stoic but playful Sandy is a great match for Weaver. Much of the humor revolves around her, as when she is busted for a ludicrously inept attempt to buy marijuana. And yet for all the effort to build Sandy into an audience favorite, she is the only principal who makes no amends for transgressions made. Hirsch’s Tim is easiest for the audience to identify with, an ordinary kid thrown into an emotional maelstrom. Hirsch gives a very human performance in a serious turn on his awkward coming of age teen in “The Girl Next Door.” Daniels is powerful and poignant as the latest of the long line of saps he’s played, apparently competing with John C. Reilly for the world record.

Primarily a drama, the film has time to work in plenty of often dark comedy. Tim answers his own question about the existence of karma when he reaps his reward for telling tall tales about his “war injury” at the nursing home: a retiree clocks him right in the nose. In a moment that we suppose is intended as irony, we see the whitebread Tim and Kyle doing gardening work under the direction of exclusively Spanish speaking immigrants. Tim is called to intervene when a drugged up Kyle begins savaging topiaries in the nude.

The special features are not bad for a small drama. There are two commentaries, but both fall a little short of the mark. Weaver clearly doesn’t feel comfortable doing hers, and rambles on a bit randomly with many pauses. Writer/director Dan Harris and Hirsch’s joint commentary is much livelier, but not terribly insightful either. The “Behind the Scenes” documentary does give a thorough if extremely brief overview of the production, and the photo gallery provides various pointless shots on set. Last and easily greatest are the deleted scenes with commentary from Harris, again displaying his knack for quirky slice of life vignettes.

“Imaginary Heroes” is a witty and amusing drama on the state of the modern American family, hopefully one much more troubled than yours. One can smile contentedly and smugly remark “there but for the grace of God, eh?” to the assembled seats of absent family members. There now, no need to despair. The bottle’s not empty yet.



Chris Wood