• Rating:
• Genre: Comedy Drama
• Movie Type: Satire, Black Comedy
• Themes: Suburban Dysfunction, Teen Angst, Suicide
• Director: Arie Posin
• Main Cast: Jamie Bell, Camilla Belle, Justin Chatwin, Glenn Close, Rory Culkin, Carrie-Anne Moss
• Release Year: 2005
• Country: US
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

The death of a troubled teen throws a suburban neighborhood into chaos in this darkly satirical comedy. Dean (Jamie Bell) is a disaffected teenager living in a California suburb that's beautiful on the surface but populated by families who live emotionally vacant lives, with the parents often too wrapped up in their own problems to pay attention to their children. One day, Dean discovers his best (and only) friend, Troy (Josh Janowicz), has killed himself. While Troy's mother (Glenn Close) hasn't figured out her son is dead just yet, Dean opts not to tell her, and besides, his own parents (William Fichtner and Allison Janney) don't appear very concerned. Dean, however, does have reason to worry -- Billy (Justin Chatwin), Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci), and Crystal (Camilla Belle) are three bullies who used to buy drugs from Troy, and they want Dean find Troy's remaining stash and give it to them. When Dean refuses to cooperate, the bullies decide to get tough and kidnap Dean's little brother; however, they end up taking the wrong child and Dean grudging finds himself trying to rescue a child he doesn't know. Meanwhile, as the adults in the neighborhood begin to emotionally implode, "the Chumscrubber" becomes a common presence in town -- a comic book and video game character represented by a decapitated post-apocalyptic teenager who has become an unavoidable pop-culture icon. The Chumscrubber also features Ralph Fiennes, Carrie-Anne Moss, John Heard, and Rita Wilson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Review

Ho hum. Another middling portrait of suburban anomie made possible by the success of American Beauty, The Chumscrubber is distinguished only by having a title that sounds vaguely indecent. There's no one cleaning up shark food -- the title refers to a video game character -- but there are plenty of dolphins, as the town's mayor (Ralph Fiennes) becomes unhinged and begins painting them all over his house. This is just one bit of counterfeit eccentricity that goes nowhere in Arie Posin's film, and Fiennes is just one of the all-star cast this movie wastes -- an entire 13 of whom are enumerated on the poster, in an attempt at validating the movie via talent overload. Included in that number are Glenn Close, who plays a shell-shocked mother like she's auditioning for Bree's sister on Desperate Housewives; Carrie-Anne Moss, the would-be temptress who never actually tries to seduce any of her daughter's friends, in a bit of typical misdirection; and teen actor Lou Taylor Pucci, seamlessly transitioning from thumbsucking to chumscrubbing. Freshman director Posin has one message he rams home in increasingly unsubtle ways: Adults are self-involved careerists, and their children fill the parental void by doing drugs and kidnapping each other. This notion could have made for wicked satire if it had been pushed over the top. But Posin's story (co-written with Zac Stanford) falls in a sorry middle ground: enough under the top that it's going for realism, but too out-there to be grounded. Another fatal flaw is how low/boring the stakes are, as characters shuffle from one location to the next without any sense of momentum toward tragedy, or even tragicomedy. By the time a bunch of characters get accidentally dosed with ecstasy -- a genre cliché if there ever was one -- The Chumscrubber has deteriorated into nothing but a joke. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Jamie Bell - Dean Stiffle
• Camilla Belle - Crystal Falls
• Justin Chatwin - Billy
• Glenn Close - Mrs. Johnson
• Rory Culkin - Charlie Stiffle
• Carrie-Anne Moss - Jerri Falls

Thomas Curtis - Charlie Bratley; Tim DeKay - Mr. Peck; William Fichtner - Dr. Bill Stiffle; Ralph Fiennes - Michael Ebbs; Richard Gleason - Parent; Caroline Goodall - Mrs. Parker; John Heard - Officer Lou Bratley; Lauren Holly - Boutique Owner; Jason Isaacs - Mr. Parker; Allison Janney - Mrs. Stiffle; Josh Janowicz - Troy; Lou Taylor Pucci - Lee; Rita Wilson - Bratley, Terri; Neal McDonough; Ben Jelen

Credit

Chris Douridas - Musical Direction/Supervision; Lawrence Bender - Producer; James Horner - Composer (Music Score); Robert Katz - Co-producer; William Scharf - Editor; Arthur Schmidt - Editor; Bob Yari - Executive Producer; Cas Donovan - First Assistant Director; Maria Nay - Set Decorator; Patti Podesta - Production Designer; Michael Beugg - Executive Producer; Amy McIntyre-Britt - Casting; Bonnie Curtis - Producer; Shawn Holden - Sound/Sound Designer; Peter A. Brown - Supervising Sound Editor; Christopher Tandon - Art Director; Anya Colloff - Casting; Lawrence Sher - Cinematographer; Gerd Koechlin - Co-producer; Andreas Theismeyer - Executive Producer; Michael Helfand - First Assistant Director; Arie Posin - Director; Arie Posin - Screen Story; Zac Stanford - Screen Story; Zac Stanford - Screenwriter; Josef Lautenschlager - Executive Producer; Manfred Heid - Co-producer; Susanne Bohnet - Co-producer; Philip Levinson - Executive Producer; Lee Clay - Co-producer

Similar Movies

Donnie Darko; American Beauty; The Virgin Suicides; Gummo; Nowhere; Welcome to the Dollhouse; Thumbsucker; The Ice Storm; The United States of Leland; The Quiet

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