The Low Down

In his memoir "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," Dave Eggers acknowledges that "the lives of people in their early twenties…are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seemed interesting to those living them at the time." Jamie Thraves would have been well-served to heed this observation when he wrote and directed "The Low Down," his debut film which concerns the lives of numerous people in their early twenties and which cannot escape the fate Eggers predicts.

Thraves' direction does have some redeeming points, like an eye for the accumulation of detail and a loose, energetic style. However, the story and characters he has scripted are so completely empty of anything interesting to normal people that "The Low Down" is one of the most stupefyingly boring movies to land on the silver screen in quite some time.

Our central character is named Frank, although you'd be hard to pressed to learn it from the film itself, since this is the kind of film in which characters' names are used sparingly if at all. Frank is a twentysomething working in a prop shop and living in an urban flat somewhere in Britain (this is unclear also). Beyond that, we learn nothing about him, which initially seems to augur mysteriousness and subtlety, but which we eventually realize is simply a reflection of the fact that there's nothing to him in the first place.

Frank is one of those people who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life not because he is conflicted or confused, but because he lacks identifiable passions of any kind. Well, let's be fair: He does display a healthy appetite for boning his pretty girlfriend Ruby. In fact, his appetite for boning her is so healthy that boning becomes their entire relationship, at least as Thraves shows it to us. Eventually, Ruby gets a little tired of it, and Frank must question who he is. If he feels like it.

The main plot is whether Frank will emotionally mature and move on from his present stasis. The obvious question is whether someone with no identifiable soul can suddenly force that soul to mature. There are a few subplots also, mostly involving Frank's work and friends and all of which concern characters who are either one-dimensional or no-dimensional.

Thraves seems to think these characters and this plot are worth the effort he has invested in portraying them, which is considerable. However, emotionally self-absorbed characters are only fun to watch when they are outstanding, or at least distinctive, or at the very least active in some way. These characters, by contrast, manage the trifecta of being egoistic, colorless and static.

Not much help comes from the cast. Aidan Gillen plays Frank as a quizzical smile and a cute face, both of which are initially ingratiating and, as the film progresses and we realize there's nothing behinds the smile, ultimately insufferable. Kate Ashfield fares better as Ruby, using her tiny bits of dialogue effectively to suggest complexity, but she'd have to move the heavens and the earth in her role to make this film interesting.

The Shooting Gallery is bringing this film to Washington. It has done D.C. filmgoers many kind services in the past, and we should not condemn it for this one misfire. We should just leave "The Low Down" to rot in the Cineplex Odeon Foundry, and wait until they take another shot.

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