Burr Steers is an incredibly talented director, and his screenplay is fantastic, filled with quirky detail and hilariously cutting put-downs. You have to wonder, though, what he thought he might be bringing to the table here.

Pointing a jeering finger at middle class socialites is nothing new. Luis Bunuel was doing it in the thirties, man. Whilst Steers work here is less explicitly surreal, his constant cry of, "Holy shit, those bourgeois types are sure fucked-up" has echoes of The Phantom Of Liberty or The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeois throughout. In addition, the aforementioned Cruel Intentions pretty much holds a monopoly on the vacuous upper-crust youth thing, although granted, it offered little more than well dressed cut-outs for most of the time. The presence of Woody Allen and Fellini can be felt on occasion also.

So what gives, man?

The redeeming factors really lie in the actors, who are uniformly terrific, up to and including both Culkins, and the writing, which is so endearingly sharp as to almost convince one that one might be watching a comedy.

Which, alas, one is certainly not.

Igby Goes Down certainly holds its fair share of the wit, but the combined result of it all is a bludgeoningly depressing hour and a half. It's certainly above-average, and thoroughly entertaining, but the bleak, nihilistic tone, the lack of compassion (barring the last few minutes), and the general sense of been-here, done-that, puked-up-heroin-laced-bile-on-the-overpriced-t-shirt all leave a disheartening taste in the mouth.

And really, the scenes where Igby gets it on with much older, much more experienced lady-friends very quickly cross the line between absurd and disturbing. He's a kid, for fucks sakes, man, what gives?

It's worth a rental for sure, and y'all might find that its sarcastic, skewed outlook on "life" is exactly what y'all were in search of. For The Duke, though, it just seemed especially nasty, and whilst it certainly tries hard, it doesn't really offer anything Wes Anderson hasn't done much better much earlier, with much more heart.

The Duke resides at Mondo Irlando

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