Kicking and Screaming has suffered many setbacks on it's way to being considered somewhat of a cult film. The fact that another film exists with it's same title starring the well-liked Will Ferrel does it's own damage, but still many complain about the content of the film itself.
Starting first with the characters that the film depicts. Many complain about them being boring and uninspired. Why couldn't Noah Baumbach pick a group of interesting people and have things happen to them? Mainly because this film is a realistic depiction of types of people you meet and may befriend despite their faults. Baumbach paints each person carefully onto the page from obvious personal experience in college life. Typically, events take place that could happen to any of us; a break up, a divorce, someone moves away, someone stays when they shouldn't, we all make bad decisions which effect our lives in ways we don't realize until it's too late.
A good example of the type of slight an artist such as Baumbach faces in his own work is a flashback scene which takes place in Jane and Grover's writing class. Jane makes a comment regarding Grover's piece regarding the hollow nature of his subjects and how they never discuss anything important and tend to discuss the little things with more anxiety than anything else. This rings true to many things I have personally heard regarding "Kicking and Screaming", that everyone could be interesting if they put all of the jokes and snide comments aside and talked about how they really felt. The problem with this is how often do those situations of pure honesty and intimacy arise in the common person's life? It is rare to be able to pull your deepest feelings out for all of your friends to see in every conversation you have, and it usually comes out in a fight or when a situation is deteriorating - such examples are Skippy and Miami/Max and Skippy, which are some of the most honest moments in the film combated with the development of the persons themselves throughout the film.
Baumbach tends to overkill the stress on aspiring (as well as accomplished) writers in his best-drawn films, which are this and "The Squid & The Whale. Where as the two parents on the edge of divorce in the latter film are writers, in Kicking and Screaming, the two young people in the outs of their love are aspiring writers and the main's parents are going through divorce. You can see many pieces of Baumbach's latter work in Kicking and Screaming, as he went back to the basics with The Squid & The Whale after suffering many disappointments in the 1990's.
It is clear that Baumbach is a different type of film maker than his auteur counterparts such as Wes Anderson. His films feel and look realistic, rather than coming from another world inspired by the many worlds within our own. He has an interesting voice, and a knack for dialog. Kicking and Screaming is a piece of romantic comedy history, and more people should go out of their way to watch it with perspective and an open mind, rather than looking at the faults in the subjects which we all have ourselves.
Starting first with the characters that the film depicts. Many complain about them being boring and uninspired. Why couldn't Noah Baumbach pick a group of interesting people and have things happen to them? Mainly because this film is a realistic depiction of types of people you meet and may befriend despite their faults. Baumbach paints each person carefully onto the page from obvious personal experience in college life. Typically, events take place that could happen to any of us; a break up, a divorce, someone moves away, someone stays when they shouldn't, we all make bad decisions which effect our lives in ways we don't realize until it's too late.
A good example of the type of slight an artist such as Baumbach faces in his own work is a flashback scene which takes place in Jane and Grover's writing class. Jane makes a comment regarding Grover's piece regarding the hollow nature of his subjects and how they never discuss anything important and tend to discuss the little things with more anxiety than anything else. This rings true to many things I have personally heard regarding "Kicking and Screaming", that everyone could be interesting if they put all of the jokes and snide comments aside and talked about how they really felt. The problem with this is how often do those situations of pure honesty and intimacy arise in the common person's life? It is rare to be able to pull your deepest feelings out for all of your friends to see in every conversation you have, and it usually comes out in a fight or when a situation is deteriorating - such examples are Skippy and Miami/Max and Skippy, which are some of the most honest moments in the film combated with the development of the persons themselves throughout the film.
Baumbach tends to overkill the stress on aspiring (as well as accomplished) writers in his best-drawn films, which are this and "The Squid & The Whale. Where as the two parents on the edge of divorce in the latter film are writers, in Kicking and Screaming, the two young people in the outs of their love are aspiring writers and the main's parents are going through divorce. You can see many pieces of Baumbach's latter work in Kicking and Screaming, as he went back to the basics with The Squid & The Whale after suffering many disappointments in the 1990's.
It is clear that Baumbach is a different type of film maker than his auteur counterparts such as Wes Anderson. His films feel and look realistic, rather than coming from another world inspired by the many worlds within our own. He has an interesting voice, and a knack for dialog. Kicking and Screaming is a piece of romantic comedy history, and more people should go out of their way to watch it with perspective and an open mind, rather than looking at the faults in the subjects which we all have ourselves.