Trailer: Matthew Broderick in ‘Diminished Capacity’

When they’re not coming-of-age stories with cool soundtracks, a statistically significant portion of today’s well funded “indies” (usually from major studio subdivisions, but in this case, IFC) deal with late-fortysomethings caring for, or not caring much about their aging family members. See Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages for an above par example. The jury is still out on Diminished Capacity, the first feature length effort for director Terry Kinney. With a screenplay adapted by Sherwood Kiraly from his novel of the same title, the film stars Matthew Broderick as a Chicago political columnist suffering from short-term memory loss who, with Alzheimer’s affected uncle (played by Alan Alda) and high school flame (Virginia Madsen) in tow, heads to a local sports memorabilia show to sell a rare baseball card. Critics at large haven’t had a shot at it yet, but an early evaluation from Variety calls it “a pleasant enough diversion” that will be “bettered watched from the horizontal position of a couch,” while The Hollywood Reporter pans Diminished as “a comedy about memory loss that is utterly forgettable.” Tsk tsk on the faux-Juno trailer graphics. Scheduled release: July 4, 2008.

tedzee | Permalink | June 16 2008 | Comments (View)