Kabluey

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource. com

It's hard to think of a movie that conveys loneliness quite as well as Kabluey. Okay, Midnight Cowboy probably did it best, but every frame of Kabluey reeks of it. There's rarely a shot in the movie with more than two people in it. There are many wide shots of a single person against a desolate backdrop. All of the sets, by design, feel stale, monotonous, empty. And the darkness at night isn't the fake blue hue of other movies: when one character steps in a shadow, you can't see him anymore, and the camera holds on the darkness.

But Kabluey isn't just for film school geeks who want to feel depressed. In part, it's actually an extremely funny physical comedy, and has terrific acting across the board.

Lisa Kudrow plays Leslie, a mother raising two little kids who make Damien look well-mannered. Her husband just got his tour of duty in Iraq extended, and she has to work but doesn't have enough money for daycare. There's no one to call -- except Salman, the black sheep brother-in-law who just lost a job at a copy store for laminating everything in sight.

That's the set-up, and it's exactly as minimalist as it sounds, but from there the movie begins to go in some strange directions. Salman -- a wide-eyed loser played by writer/director Scott Prendergast -- arrives, and after a few failed days of watching the kids takes up a part-time job so that he can help Leslie pay for daycare. The job involves wearing a gigantic blue suit (I guess the suit's name is Kabluey, hence the title) and handing out fliers for office space. Except the suit's hands don't have any fingers, and he's deposited by his boss on an empty stretch of country road every day.

Prendergast has the most scenes here, and proves himself to be a skilled comedian, but the movie's soul belongs to Leslie, and Kudrow excels in the role. Her character is not the best mother, happy to pawn her kids off on Salman or anyone else, and as Salman discovers over the course of the film, she's not a saint in other departments either. A lesser actress would let the character become too unlikable, but Kudrow imbues Leslie with such desperation and sadness that she becomes one of the best female characters I've seen at the movies this year. (With barely any makeup, Kudrow also has an admirable lack of vanity.)

Kabluey is a modest movie, which sets it at odds with most moviegoers' summer tastes. But it's very funny and very touching, extremely relatable and just understated enough. Maybe it'll become a cult success. Few movies have such a strong handle on what they want to be.

Movie Grade: B+

Synopsis:

Despite being somewhat inept in most every way imaginable, Salman (Scott Prendergast) looks to help his sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) raise her two sons while her husband ...