12/25/2023 0 Comments Nick schwartz comedian![]() ![]() The movie’s sentimentality comes out better in its inspired moments of bonding, like when Scott’s family affectionately pounds back Irish car bombs at the dinner table. It’s when the movie tries to squeeze some big emotions out of Crystal later on that the story can be a little flat, sending the script amiss when it starts to aim right for the heart. The script by Peter Hoare gets to these problems through conversations between Scott and Marty that are spiked with enough humor and sadness to keep everything moving, while being bolstered by the always-welcome screen presence of Crystal. It’s a good question, of which this movie has a funny, at times aggressively poignant way of answering it. “Standing Up, Falling Down” asks out loud whether a person can, in the script’s laidback way of speaking, “unf**k” something. A character like Marty, who has clearly lived a lot of life, could be too whimsical in certain hands-but the movie's best moments frame him as a surprisingly grounded guy, who likes to do things big because he knows how quiet and lonely everything else can be. And when Marty is not with Scott, he’s often alone in his gray home, surrounded by numerous blank surfaces. Marty has problems in his life that he needs to address too-underneath all of his scarves, fedoras, and his Twitter-verified account dedicated to dermatology jokes is a melancholy made up of two deceased wives, children that won’t speak to him, and a former lifestyle he calls “The Beast.” Marty is in bold spirits when hanging out with his new comedian friend, but there’s always a little distance. It’s a small town, but it’s the confident mechanics of director Matt Ratner that keep putting Marty and Scott together, and eventually you support their friendship. ![]() It goes from strange to charming that Marty keeps popping up in Scott’s life, first as a guy at the bar, then a fellow crasher at the wake at one of Scott's friends, and then as Marty’s dermatologist. Whether the role was written with him in mind or not, Marty is very much a character you want from a Billy Crystal performance-very clever, a little sly in its self-amusement, always sweet. That’s just the beginning of Marty’s world of irreverent humor, which Scott gets sucked into and then becomes a central part of. Crystal enters the movie in a way that’s forced (as some of the script’s comic and dramatic hands can be) by crashing into a urinating Scott in a bathroom, and deciding himself to pee in the sink. It turns out that what Scott needs in his life is a bonafide bon vivant like Marty (Billy Crystal). In the movie’s first 15 minutes or so, Scott's journey is not very original (or narratively promising) even though he shares a few good jokes with his ball-busting, scene-stealing sister Megan ( Grace Gummer). His life story isn’t that interesting-and he seems to be aware of that by initially telling impersonal jokes on stage-but he has regrets from his past life that he needs to sort out, like the relationship with a woman named Becky ( Eloise Mumford), which he ran away from even though she could have been The One. Schwartz stars in this indie comedy as Scott, a stand-up comedian who moves back to his parents’ home on Long Island after years of failure in Hollywood. ![]()
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