Review - Touchy Feely (2013)

 

Starring Rosemarie DeWitt, Josh Pais and Ellen Page.
Directed by Lynn Shelton.

The award for weirdest movie of the year goes to Touchy Feely. The movie is directed by Lynn Shelton, the same director who brought us Your Sister's Sister in 2012 - a movie which I adored. Touchy Feely features a strong cast but I don't know what the hell Lynn Shelton was thinking. Was she high or she just didn't a damn while making this movie? That's the impression I got while watching.

Wikipedia describes the story as a "closely observed examination of a family whose delicate psychic balance starts to unbalance". I think this movie was trying to showcase the ups and downs of the brother Paul (Josh Pais) and sister Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt) but the execution is so poor. In truth, all I saw was a bunch of family members doing uninteresting shit while being all weird on top of it. There is a love story and a somewhat disgruntled family story buried deep within this movie but it never came together and I really don't know what to make of it. As in, things are happening in this movie but at the same time you have no idea what's happening. The cast features famed actress Ellen Page and she is given absolutely nothing to work with. She's just a pointless side piece in this junk.

The character development is so poor and that causes most of the characters to feel so oddly out of place. We get no explanation for the strange occurrences that happens in this film - especially to that of Rosemarie DeWitt and Josh Pais characters. However amidst all the pointless shit going on in this film, Josh Pais's portrayal of this overly nerdy odd dentist was a spark. He tries his best and his nuanced character is what kept me watching this movie -- but again, the story is so superficial that this character is just wasted along with the rest. I sat there hoping that it would somehow come together, but instead it got more and more disjointed and offers no explanation to the audience. The audience is rewarded with an anti-climatic dull ending like nothing even happened for 90 minutes --- well actually nothing did happen.

I would avoid this film at all costs. It is dumb, pointless and I wish I could un-watch it.

Rating: 1/10