The Chumscrubber is a 2005 dark comedy film directed by Arie Posin and written by Posin and Zac Stanford, starring an ensemble cast. The film focuses on the lack of communication between teenagers and their parents, and the prevalence of prescription drugs in American society. The title of the film refers to a character that helps his friends to survive in a superficial world by keeping things authentic and is portrayed in form of a video game omnipresent in the teenagers' lives, in which a post-apocalyptic hero carries his severed head in his hand as he fights the forces of evil.
Plot
The Chumscrubber begins in a fictional town based in Southern California called Hillside, where Troy is the supplier of prescription medication to the students at the local high school.
Dean (Jamie Bell) is searching his room, ruffling through pill bottles, and finding that almost all of his hiding spots for the drugs are empty. After finding what is implied to be the last of his stockpile of illicitly obtained medication, Dean heads for Troy's (Joshua Janowicz) house in order to procure more medication.
Dean arrives at Troy's house and lets himself into Troy's hideaway in the backyard. He discovers Troy has committed suicide by hanging himself. He leaves without telling Troy’s mother what he has discovered.
The next morning, Troy’s suicide has been found out by many people in the town. Dean's parents are worried about him, because he didn’t tell anyone when he discovered Troy. Dean’s father prescribes him a bottle of what look like “feel-good” pills. Dean then heads to school.
A student named Billy (Justin Chatwin) dangles a skeleton in a noose above one of the outside rafters at their high school. Billy is a drug dealer who was supplied by Troy. We also meet Crystal (Camilla Belle), who formally introduces herself to Dean and apologizes for Billy’s actions thus far. After an exchange of words, we find out Crystal’s true intentions: for Dean to get Troy’s drugs hidden in his room, and bring them to Billy and his friends. Angered, Dean storms off.
Billy and his friend Lee have a plan to kidnap Dean’s little brother as a sort of ransom for the pills to motivate Dean to procure the drugs.
Teri Bratley and the mayor are introduced to the story. The mayor is to pick up his future step son from school, but he is distracted and ends up completely forgetting about the child. The group of antagonists call Dean to tell him about how they’ve kidnapped his younger brother and will kill him if the group does not receive the money. There is one problem: they kidnapped the wrong child. They actually ended up kidnapping Charlie Bratley, not Charlie Stifle.
As the night winds on, the antagonists continue to hold the wrong Charlie, while his parents are still unaware that he’s been kidnapped. They spend the night at Crystal’s home.
In the morning, Dean receives another call from Crystal. She stresses that the criminals are becoming more and more serious with their acts, and have no intentions of letting the wrong Charlie go, even if he’s in no way tied to the drugs or Troy and Dean. Dean disagrees with the proposal to get the drugs again, but eventually gives in and decides to sneak over to Troy’s home and steal the drugs. The antagonists then head over to Billy’s home. Almost immediately after arriving, Billy and Lee get into an argument and Billy throws a knife at Lee. Billy’s father enters the room, asking who threw the knife. Billy is then told, “Come on”, by his father, insinuating that he will receive some sort of physical punishment for his behavior, although what ends up happening is unknown. Charlie Bratley is watching it all unfold, while his parents, who are to get married in the morning, are just beginning to notice that he’s gone, although they do receive a message from Crystal’s mother that their son is in her custody (even though the crew actually had left Crystal’s house earlier that morning.)
Dean is now getting ready to deliver the drugs to Billy and his friends. He calls Crystal at this point, and mentions that he just wants to get the entire ordeal over with. He abruptly ends the call, leaving the hundreds of pills alone in the kitchen for a short time while going outside to talk with his mother. Before long, the talk is over, and Dean finds himself at the meeting place to give the pills to Billy, Crystal, and Lee, so as to hopefully end the ordeal.
As Dean arrives, he hands over the bag immediately and all seems well. Yet, there is trouble brewing. Since Dean had left his bag unattended, his younger brother found the pills and replaced them with his mother’s Veggiforce foods. After Dean and Billy realize what is actually in the bag, the two begin to fight. It is soon broken up, and since Lee and Billy accuse Dean of starting the fight, he is blamed for it by an adult and he soon finds himself all alone at the police department.
Although reluctant at first, Dean decides to narrate his unbelievable story to the officer, who happens to be the father of the kidnapped son. As to be expected, Charlie Bratley’s father doesn’t believe the story. The movie then cuts to Billy and the rest, with Charlie asking them to take him home. The kidnappers still refuse to take the young boy home. Instead, they decide to go to Lee’s house. In the meantime, Dean has been released, and his father has more Viloprex for him, the same medicine he gives him at the beginning of the movie.
The scene then cuts to Charlie Bratley’s mother and stepfather, and to the story of when the two first met. This is when the groom explains his new-found love for art, going as far as to paint dolphins throughout his home despite a wedding the next day. The town is falling apart even further, with Troy’s mother working on hard gardens in the middle of the night. We also find that Dean’s younger brother, Charlie Stifle, not to be confused with Charlie Bratley, is crushing up the pills to put in his mother’s casserole.
The next day, Charlie Bratley’s father, the police officer, finally realizes that his own son is kidnapped. The officer heads out to look for his son, unaided by his ex-wife who interprets his persistence on the issue as his being unable to let go of her.
Billy is then shown playing the video game 'The Chumscrubber'. Crystal walks into the room, and she begins to thank Billy for "keeping things interesting" and asks him to stop with the kidnapping scheme. When he does not comply, Crystal sets off to look for Dean to try and get him to help defuse the situation. When Crystal arrives at Dean's house, she is greeted in the same manner by Dean's mother and with the same song in the background as was playing when Dean discovered Troy's body. After going into Dean's room, Crystal finds a delirious Dean imagining Troy hanging from his ceiling, asking "who [would] call this a life?" At this point, Dean is shown to demonstrate a feeling of grief over the death of Troy, the first time he has done so in the film. Fumbling with the medication his father has given him (which the audience can assume numbs feelings of grief), Troy drops the pills into an air-conditioning vent and finally gives up on taking them, accepting his emotion rather than trying to ignore it.
While in thought, Lee comes up with the idea that he and Billy should kill Charlie, because if they were caught with him, they would be in serious trouble. Billy gives Lee the knife and Lee takes a stab at Charlie twice. The second time, Charlie catches the knife and swings it back up at Billy’s eye, ruining his 20/20 vision and any chance he has of going into the Air Force as he wishes. Young Charlie then goes for Lee, but is stopped by Dean. Meanwhile, Billy runs away, screaming about his eye. His plight is finally ended once he is hit by Officer Bratley and skyrocketed into the air.
Dean goes into Troy’s memorial, where Troy’s mother discloses that she didn’t know her own son. Dean tells her about Troy, and she thanks him. Billy ends up in jail (with an eyepatch), and Lee gets acquitted. Dean’s father’s book sales don’t end up doing so well, but his wife’s VeggieForce ends up being a huge success. Mrs. Bratley is shown to be unfruitful in her attempts to design and create more developments: 'her vision was never realized.' Mayor Michael Ebbs gets out of politics and becomes an artist,dating Jerri Falls, Crystal's mother. Charlie Bratley is sent to live with his father. A voiceover explains that "Dean and Crystal escaped… together." The two are shown kissing. The movie ends with the Chumscrubber alternating between a live action and animated portrayal, reiterating the metaphor the video game provided throughout the film.
Cast
Production
Locations
The high school scenes were filmed on location in the Santa Clarita, California junior high school, with special effects work completed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Themes
The film features dolphins as a recurring motif. After his accident Mayor Ebbs becomes obsessed painting dolphins everywhere. At the end of the film the camera pulls away, showing an aerial view of the town, the street plan itself forms the shape of a dolphin.
Reception
Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 34% based on 58 reviews.[1]. The consensus is: "This derivative poke at suburbia falls short of delivering a scathing indictment of upper middle-class disconnect." Metacritic gave the film a rating of 43% based on the reviews of 12 critics.[2]
Richard Reoper describes it as "part Donnie Darko part American Beauty ... there's even a little Desperate Housewives in there" and he praised the film for "good performances and strong writing" while noting it was strongly influenced by other sources and told in a surreal way.[3] Carina Chocano of the LA Times simlarly described it saying the film "could be mistaken for the secret love child of Donnie Darko and Desperate Housewives" [4]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine was unapologetic and describing the film as "an appallingly clumsy and stupid take on drugs, kidnapping and suicide in suburbia". [5]
Box office
Awards
The film won the Audience Award for best film in Main Competition at the Moscow Film Festival.
Soundtrack
The Chumscrubber soundtrack contains five songs by various artists, plus a score for the film composed by James Horner (denoted below with an asterisk).
- Phantom Planet - "Our House"
- The Like - "Bridge to Nowhere"
- Snow Patrol - "Run"
- Placebo - "Pure Morning"
- Annetenna - "Oblivion"
- "Spreading Happiness All Around"*
- "Kidnapping the Wrong Charlie"*
- "Dolphins"*
- "Pot Casserole"*
- "Digging Montage"*
- "Parental Rift/The Chumscrubber"*
- "Not Fun Anymore..."*
- "A Confluence of Families"
- "The End"*
Although not included on the official soundtrack, Rooney's "Sleep Song" can be heard throughout the movie.
References
External links
