Susan Granger’s review of “Imaginary Heroes” (Sony Pictures Classics)
This quirky tragi-comedy profiles the dysfunctional Travis family that’s been fractured by the suicide of the oldest son who, one morning before school, inexplicably shot himself in the head. Teenage Tim (Emile Hirsch) tries to make sense of the loss of his big brother Matt (Kip Pardue), a high school swimming champion who loathed the sport, seeking solace with his even-more-confused buddy Kyle (Ryan Donowho). His medically phobic mother, Sandy (Sigourney Weaver), numbs her pain with marijuana, and his grief-stricken father, Ben (Jeff Daniels), emotionally disconnects not only at home but at work, spending his days sitting on a park bench, staring off into space. It’s all about how different people deal with the pain and loss of death. Director/screenwriter Dan Harris (“X2: X-Men United”) makes his directorial debut in this incohesive attempt to explore the human condition as it is cracking under stress, evoking memories of far-better films like “American Beauty” and “Ordinary People.” (Although since my first husband died many years ago, the insensitivity and absurdity of remarks made by well-meaning friends during a period of bereavement struck an oddly familiar chord.) Emile Hirsch epitomizes the adolescent angst of the underachiever and Sigourney Weaver, who played a similar matriarch in “The Ice Storm,” nails the sardonic mother role. In one hilarious scene, she visits a local head shop to buy weed and winds up in a police cruiser. And her antagonistic relationship with her next-door neighbor (Deirdre O’Connell) proves to be multi-layered as a dark secret hidden within the story unfolds. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Imaginary Heroes” is an unevenly melodramatic 6. It’s a suburban survival tale.
