‘See You When I See You’ review: Jay Duplass’ latest drama is hurt by his leading man

Last year, Jay Duplass directed the brilliantly funny film Baltimorewhich starred co-writer Michael Strassner as an improv comedian who finds a new lease of life through an unexpected friendship with an obnoxious dentist. This year, Duplass offers a sort of sister film as a sequel, adapting comedian Adam Cayton-Holland’s memoir, Tragedy no longer time, in the drama We’ll see you when I see you.

Or The Baltimoremorons centered on (and featuring) a comedian dealing with suicidal ideation, We’ll see you when I see you focuses on a family grieving after losing their sister and daughter to suicide. Cayton-Holland wrote the screenplay adapted from We’ll see you when I see you, but unlike Strassner, he does not star in the resulting film. Instead, Duplass launched independent ingedude Cooper Raiff (Really smooth cha cha, shithouse) to play the lead role of a comedian who can’t cope with the death of his younger sister, Leah (Kaitlyn Dever).

While the supporting cast is made up of compelling performers, including David Duchovny, Lucy Boynton and Hope Davis, We’ll see you when I see you is hampered by a leading man who can’t handle the emotional weight of this story.

We’ll see you when I see you explores a family’s loss to suicide.

Two months after Leah’s suicide, the Whistler family cleans out their apartment. Older sister Emily (Boynton) determinedly tries to catch the koi fish her fanciful brother kept in a pond not approved by the owner. Their lawyer father, Robert (Duchovny), fills out the paperwork, while his wife Page (Davis) rejects the idea of ​​a funeral for their youngest child. Meanwhile, second child Aaron (Raiff) is lost in thought while looking at an old photo of the entire family.

We’ll see you when I see you explores a different way of coping with grief through each character. Emily, who has a child and husband to care for as well as her father’s law firm, finds solace in a task. Robert is invested in making sure his wife and other children are okay, but he can’t rest because they most certainly aren’t. Page isolates herself from everything: the pain of this loss, the attention of her family and even the panic when she discovers a lump in her breast. Aaron embraces the chaos and rejects therapy.

Aaron ghosted a potential girlfriend. He gave up his job as a comedy writer. He falls into memories of his younger sister which turn into nightmare scenarios. For example, when remembering the last night they spent time together, he and Leah are happily fooling around at a bar. But a conversation that once seemed mundane now takes on great, horrible significance because it was our last. As she speaks, the bar’s wood-paneled ceiling gives way to reveal a ravenous black hole, seeking to suck in everything it can, including Leah. In his distorted memory, Aaron calls out to him, demanding to know why.

This imagery returns in We’ll see you when I see you. It’s effective because, yes, that’s what grief can feel like, an insatiable sucking hole eager to swallow us up mercilessly. These scenes are all the more disturbing because Dever plays them with nonchalance. As Raiff screams in terror, she remains casual about her character’s forgetfulness. This visual and dissonance captures Aaron’s anger towards his sister well, but Raiff himself fails to sell the emotion.

Cooper Raiff drags down We’ll see you when I see you.

Whether he’s awkwardly flirting with a crush, bickering with his older sister, or cajoling his mother, Aaron’s every move feels like a performance. Raiff’s approach to the material is too broad to blend in with the rest of the cast. And perhaps that’s intentional, meant to echo how Aaron, as a comedian, is ill-equipped to deal with something this serious. But this approach would only work if Raiff’s performance became strong or nuanced at some point, and that’s simply not the case.

Its groping becomes frustrating as Aaron’s story outpaces the plot, although his sister’s and parents’ respective story arcs are far more compelling. Page and Robert, who in flashbacks are radiantly in love, can barely be in the same room. He wants her, but his injury cannot allow him to be vulnerable in conversation or copulation. In quiet moments alone, Davis and Duchovny silently seethe with an almost deafening sorrow.

They are good. But Boynton (Greatest hits) is brilliant and dazzling. In the hands of a lesser actress, Emily could come across as obnoxiously bossy or coldly arrogant. But Boynton’s performance makes it clear that Emily’s efforts to bully the family into group tasks — like cleaning Leah’s house and planning a funeral — are her way of bringing them together to heal. She can practically spit when arguing with her irresponsible brother, but it’s out of frustration that she’s expected to always be a mother, wife, and eldest daughter, while everyone else gives her space to be the jerk.

We’ll see you when I see you is imperfect but beautiful.

Raiff’s failure as a leading man hurts this drama, but doesn’t ruin it. Cayton-Holland’s scenario is reflected by making the internal external. So fears about what comes next turn into a beautiful flashback where Whistler’s father talks to his children about the limitless wonders of space and the strange fluidity of time. The flashbacks transformed into battlefields provide a privileged place to stage Aaron’s fight for sanity. By bickering with a sister who is nothing more than a memory, we are invited not only into his past, but also into how he feels now.

Duplass cinematographer Jim Frohna wisely favors a handheld camera for such dramatic moments. The feeling of the frame swinging gives a feeling of hesitation. You can practically feel your own feet bracing for the uncertainty of whether to move forward into a fearful future or stay behind in the certain but familiar pain of the present. This self-conscious instability subtly reinforces the film’s actual emotional fragility. But once again, its leader cannot create the same effect. Rather than revelatory, Raiff is constantly assaulted by joy, sorrow, and something else. He feels like a stooge in the middle of a tragedy, and while that makes sense for the first half of the film — perhaps reflecting Cayton-Holland’s insecurity about his coping skills — the second half offers no growth in that vein. Thus, Raiff becomes more of a distraction from the subplots, rather than the solid center of the film.

And yet I cried while watching We’ll see you when I see you. Despite Raiff’s clumsy attempts at depth, Duplass and the rest of his ensemble gracefully capture the difficulty of grieving a death by suicide. The fact that life goes on is both a blessing and a curse in times like these. And We’ll see you when I see you explores this, overall, with human nuances.

We’ll see you when I see you was screened out of the SXSW Film Festival. It doesn’t have a release date yet.

If you are feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, talk to someone. You can call or text 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to 988, or chat on 988lifeline.org. You can reach Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text “START” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI Helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday – Friday 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or by email. [email protected]. If you don’t like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Survival Chat. Here is a list of international resources.