Midlife crisis drama 'Brad's Status' insightful, funny
In “Brad's Status,” Ben Stiller plays a father accompanying his son on college tours, as his regrets, ruminations and reflections on where he went wrong bubble to the surface, just as his child's own hopes and dreams are on the cusp of being realized.
Written and directed by Mike White, “Brad's Status” contains moments of delicate humor as Brad Sloan — portrayed by Stiller with the actor's characteristically pained expression of incipient mortification — toggles between humiliation at not having achieved the material success he now craves and pride at having stuck to his values by creating a happy family life.
The founder of a nonprofit group, Brad lives a modest upper-middle-class life with his wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), who works for the government, and their son, Troy (Austin Abrams), a gifted musician who's been told he'll have no trouble getting into Yale.
But the soft-spoken Troy, flawlessly played in a subtly revelatory performance by Abrams, wants to study with his idol at Harvard.
If that sounds like a first-world problem, rest assured that the observation is made explicitly in “Brad's Status.”
The title character is obsessively revisiting his college days at Tufts, specifically, the financial success and world renown of his undergraduate buddies as played by Michael Sheen, Luke Wilson, Jemaine Clement and White himself in a series of amusing fantasy sequences and real-life encounters.
“Brad's Status” is the grown-up version of the recent millennial indie “Ingrid Goes West” in that it dramatizes the current epidemic of envy and doubt brought on by constant social-media comparison.
Somewhere out there, our friends are surpassing us, making more money and having more fun and getting more sex while we hack away at our own sad lives.
“We're running out of time,” Brad tells Melanie at one point. “We've plateaued.” (That feeling is brought to vivid life later in an excruciating scene when Brad attempts to obtain an airline ticket upgrade.)
Aided by an ethereally dissonant score by Mark Mothersbaugh, “Brad's Status” gives full voice to those midlife worries, but also to the reassurance that it's possible to recognize the things that really matter.
As he did in his screenplay for this summer's “Beatriz at Dinner,” White skewers contemporary poses and anxieties when a young undergraduate, played in a brief but wonderfully lived-in turn by Shazi Raja, confronts Brad with his own self-pity and solipsism.
“Brad's Status” — co-financed and released by Washington Post owner Jeffrey Bezos' Amazon Studios, doesn't tie up every loose end.
But Stiller's hyper-self-aware character finally turns a kind of corner, successfully navigating the ruefulness of the past and the fear of the future into the safe harbor of right now.
“Be present,” his wife calls as he and his son embark on their journey.
She makes it sound so easy.
“Brad's Status”
★ ★ ★ ½
<b>Starring: </b><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">Ben Stiller, Michael Sheen, Jenna Fischer, Luke Wilson, Austin Abrams</span>
<b>Directed by: </b><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">Mike White</span>
<b>Other: </b><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">An Amazon Studios release.</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">Rated R for language. 101 minutes</span>