Review of Brad's Status (2017) by Adam M — 06 Sep 2018

I wish this movie was funnier. There's some laughs to be had in Brad's fantasies about how his friend's lives work. The absurdly over the top nature of the fronts they have put up to the world.

But ultimately it just feels like the movie takes its protagonist's existential whining too seriously. I knew I was going to not like Brad within the first five minutes, when it cuts from him looking at the extravagant lives of his former friends, his inner monologue pining for their wealth, to a shot of his gigantic bedroom where he's laying next to Jenna Fisher.

Oh woah is me, I'm successful in my field but not obscenely wealthy, oh no. It feels like the movie never adequately addresses how lucky Brad actually is. The closest it comes is an idealistic young college student calling him out on his bullshit, he thinks about it for a second, and then goes back to imagining her in a bikini in the next scene.

Instead of tearing down Brad's fantasies, the script instead tears down the people he has the fantasies about. This is a movie where kids are considered entitled for knowing what the word cisgender means, and young women are compared to "the world;" an object to be admired from afar.

The plot steps on cliche after cliche: Brad spending a lot of money to save face, feeling inadequate when walking through the first class section of a plane, most of the phone calls end because the character on the other end strangely decided to call just before doing something incredibly urgent.

The score is good, though overused, and there is some good photography going on here. The acting is really solid across the board, Ben Stiller does his best to make Brad an empathetic presence, and the dialogue between him and Austin Abrams is often the best part of the movie, as are any of the scenes that get Brad out of his head for a bit.

But the attempts at insight, at analyzing the difference between our real lives and what we present to the world, are hit-and-miss. Maybe it just because I can't connect, I was far more interested in what Brad's son was going through.

But if the movie had taken a few more jabs at Brad's entitled world view, given him a moment to take himself less seriously, then I would have left the movie less annoyed. Also I don't really understand why all of his narration was in the past tense.

There was no framing device where he's telling the story later, so it felt a little awkward.