About Alex (2014)

So this movie was basically just a shittier, modernized update of The Big Chill. Except in this one the friend didn't succeed in his suicide attempt, which is so millennials.

The movie opens up on some shots of an untidy home. Dripping faucets and dirty plates and shit. Then there's some faceless dude who I thought was Justin Long for some reason and thank god it wasn't, folding a newspaper clipping and placing it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. The dude climbs into a tub. It's Jason Ritter and thank god not Justin Long. He's going to cut his wrists probably. Good times to be had by all.

Then we see some other late-twentiesish people at like their day jobs. Nate Parker works at a newspaper probably and we see he's working on a book but has writer's block. Aubrey Plaza works at some law place, and when she gets her phone call she's...like embarrassed to be caught on the phone, which made me think she was like a secretary or something but apparently she's an actual lawyer??? Not the cool Elle Woods type, obviously. Max Greenfield's massive head works at some place. He has a beard and glasses, so like hipster and a misanthrope or whatever. Very kewl. I don't really remember Maggie Grace's ~~placement~~ in this bit. The bit of all of Jason Ritter's friends getting the call that he has attempted suicide. Jason is the eponymous Alex in the title. About Alex~~~~. Oh, Eyebrows Minghella is here, too. He...has a job, too? He and his eyebrows also get a phone call. Am I forgetting any more vaguely anxious late twenties college friends of Alex's?? No. Thank god, no. 

Qq: What's up with...Alex's friends getting the call...about...h..i..s...sui...cide??? When does that ever happen? Who? What? I don't think--hmm, maybe Alex's emergency contact was Nate Parker? And then Nate called all the other losers, I guess? Okay, fine, that makes sense, I guess? It just seems so bizarre that Alex's friends from college whom he is not even really close with anymore would be the ones to take care of him at this super-crucial, urgent ass time in his life. Like what are these messy ass baby adults busy with their own problems supposed to do?? How are they supposed to help him? Like, if they were helpful he would have come to them prior to trying to kill himself and probably none of this would have happened but okay I guess we have to force scenarios for this movie to exist. But, you know, this movie could just not exist? Right? Like, it could just not have been written. Like, wow, why is my idea sooo much better than whoever decided to create this film??? Idk, man. Life is crazy. Right, movie? Life is crazy, right?? Lolhahahaha 

So Maggie Grace and Nate Parker are in a progressive~ and ~diverse~ like totally kewl that no one even mentions it interracial relationship. It's just, like, so 2000 and late for people to not be in interracial relationships, you know? Hmmm, but can we talk about how Nate Parker is like the only black dude amongst all these white asses? Or, no, okay Aubrey is ~latina~, maybe? And Max and his eyebrows probably have some extra stuff going on. But, actually, no, they're all ultra fucking white. Like, maybe Aubrey is half some shit, but this bitch sits up here and makes chilled watermelon soup at some point. Seriously. And everyone gets very excited about it. Everyone is very very white. And I'm looking at Nate like, bro, don't you feel weird having like all white ass friends? I mean, at one point you get super-excited about Bruce fucking Springsteen. And then the jew one has to shut you down about it. I mean, bro. And then you get super-pumped about Arcade Fire. Like, I love Arcade Fire, but bro. You need at least one other legit minority friend. You can't just be hanging out with all these cheese and tomato sandwiches all the time, bro. This is how you get weird ass friends like Jason Ritter super-obsessed with you and masturbating to some fucking story you wrote in your fucking freshman year of college or some shit. And like, who do you go to the barbershop with? Lol seriously the whole time I was watching this I was just verrrry concerned for him being around all these very white ass white people. Writer's block, fam? Or have you just been eating a lot of unseasoned, under-fried fried chicken? Which is essentially poison? You don't have writer's block, your girl gave you ritz crackers with tuna on it for dinner one too many times and now you have mercury poison or some shit and your brain is all fucked up and tbh this is what you get. 

So I guess I complained enough about my issues with Nate's character. Wait - no. Because we super have to talk about his relationship with Maggie, maybe? So...I feel like there are ~stars~ or leads of this movie, and none of them include Jason Ritter as Alex, which is a fucking mess, but I didn't make this movie so lol that's on them. Maybe they were going for something. Like, the guy who killed himself in The Big Chill wasn't a prominent character. Wait, that nigga's name was Alex in.............wtf? Wait, so this movie is just a straight-up fucking remake of The Big Chill, but the kind of remake where it's called a ~homage~??? Like how Blue Jasmine was ~homaging~ A Streetcar Named Desire? CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW AUBREY AT ONE POINT IS LIKE "omg u guise this is just like one of those movies from the eighties~~~" Ugh, bitch, shut up. Like you can't just add one little line trying to be self-aware and have like a weird awkward silence follow it in the film that completely nullified it and then Maggie Grace chimed in like WHY DOES EVERYTHING ALWAYS HAVE TO BE LIKE SOMETHING? Bitch, you shut up, too. Ugh omg. And then Max Greenfield is all BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE DOES NOW. WE JUST REFERENCE STUFF. 'THAT WEDDING I WENT TO WAS JUST LIKE WEDDING CRASHERS' OMG I HATE PEOPLE SO MUCH EVEN THOUGH I AM THE WORST PEOPLE WHO HAS EVER Like. Can everyone in this movie. please. fucking. die. 

lol I have...so...many complaints. I didn't even get to Maggie and Nate's dull ass romancetionship! So whatever they're a couple. And they're driving to Alex's house and Maggie is all "I got that job or whatever and it's in California" and Nate isn't happy because apparently they talked about this and he can't just up and leave his job. Lol, okay, why not? I bet if Nate got a job in Cali he'd expect Maggie to go, wtf? Later, Maggie suspects she's preg and Nate offers her a weed joint and she doesn't want it and so he pulls her aside and is like wtf?? since when do you turn down a weed joint?? And Maggie is all in her annoying, too-soft, too-low fucking bitch can you speak the fuck up voice, like, "I didn't want to sway your opinion but..." Like, she didn't want to tell Nate-o that she was preg with his bb because she didn't want him to decide to go to Cali just because she was with mulatto child. Nate is all excited like, "I'm just imagining what a child with our features would look like." BRUH. lol, like, PLEASE! PLEAAASSSSEEEE! I can't believe they wrote that in the script like lol it's so loaded. Idk maybe it's just me because I'm black, or because I am an extremely cynical negative person lol but I was fucking screaming. And of course he decides now he's super-pumped to go to Cali so they can be one big happy fucking family ugh. And then like two seconds later Maggie finds out she's not pregnant and Nate is essentially like "lol ok then byyyeeee". LIIIIIIKKKEKEKEEEEE. And so Maggie goes to Alex's room for some comforting--CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW ALEX WAS IN LOVE WITH NATE BUTUTUUTTTTT THIS IS NEVER REALLY ADDRESSED. Like, it is but it isn't. Which was highly annoying to me. I wanted a big confessional because I love over-the-top and I really felt like I earned a big confession scene after suffering through all this mess. I mean, I guess the scene where they were playing that made-up game and then Max makes it awkward by asking Alex why he tried to kill himself, leading to a big blow-up between Nate and Alex was...good? Like, I love yelling. But they still didn't get to the root. Or Alex didn't get to the root of Nate's anus, let's keep it real, and that's all I wanted. And okay after Nate practically dumps Maggie, she goes and fucks Alex??? Okay?? Were they fucking Nate, like, by proxy? Lol, liiike? What kind of nonsense was this? And Nate walks in on them and he runs out like a little bitch. What is he mad about? Didn't he dump her? Or is this a normal reaction and all my feelings were numbed away long ago? Also, if Alex was fucking my girl I'd just be like "aw, that's cute". Like he's such a non-factor he might as well be shining her fucking shoes or clipping her split-ends, like please. 

After Nate catches Alex moisturizing Maggie's scalp, he runs out of the house all salty. Alex and Maggie are running after him and Alex is like omg i'm soo sorry bro I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH lol like. So Nate punches him. Who punches someone? Lol, like, you're an adult. Handle your anger, like, better? Also, you can't be getting all niggerish with these people, Nate. Know your place and stay in your lane. This bitch is serving you chilled watermelon soup and you have the audacity to think you are safe in their presence and that they won't call 5-0 extra-quick on your big-lipped ass. Pull yourself together! 

He gets into a car that I'm 87% sure doesn't belong to him and immediately crashes it into a tree. Like, no, good job. What a drama queen, seriously. Then he gets out with his head bleeding or some shit and suddenly has inspiration to write lol. I love how this movie treats his writing as some major, important thing. And then there's some voiceover reading of his work and it's all boring and shit. Like you made it into The New Yorker but those people suck and are old, so is that really an achievement, and is your writing really good? Like, nothing I'd ever write would make it in there, which means they're trash and don't know shit so :) good luck :) with your writing career :) sweetheart :))

So other characters way more inappropriately important than Alex were Aubrey and Max. I can kinda see why Alex tried to kill himself? Like all his friends are super self-absorbed with their incredibly mundane problems and like of course they never have time for him. But if I was Alex I wouldn't be killing myself because Max Greenfield's budget Zachary Quinto tease didn't want to hang with me anymore. Like, I'd be killing myself because of my shitty, late-nineties haircut I have for some reason like I'm a post-fame, pre-death Jonathan Brandis. Someone who succeeded, where Alex failed.

Aubrey is...ugh. Idk. She's like nice or whatever to Alex and watching him blah blah. She has some stuff going on with Minghella and his eyebrows. I figured they were exes, but apparently they just had crushes on each other in college???? Can we talk about how weird it is...that these people are still friends? Is that weird or normal? Or maybe they're not still really friends because they keep mentioning how none of them really kept in contact with Alex besides Nate so....anyway, idk. But I always find these movies where a group of adult friends are friends from like...school, bizarre. Even college. Idk, maybe I'm just weird because I don't have any friends and don't know the rules lol. So, fine. I guess. It's definitely weird they all got together to stay at this house, though. For like a weekend. As if Alex would be cured of his depression in a weekend lol but okie dokie!! But ugh anyway, Aubrey and Eyebrows have a thingblllahah. Eyebrows has a girlfriend, Jane Levy, my babe. But ugh she's playing some self-conscious, early twenties type chick here. Which is, so annoying. And I hate how Eyebrows' friends treat their relationship like it's bizarre because she's 22 and like she's a baby because she's what - seven years younger than him? What a bunch of insecure fucking losers. They make all these references to young people and what the youngins are up to and...it's like...none of you are even thirty, right? Right? Pretty sure they mentioned that college was seven years ago. Which would make most of them twenty-nine. Like, what the fuck are they talking about? Ugh, so obnoxious. 

I didn't like how Jane's character was written, it was completely, just, like I'm embarrassed for whoever wrote this movie. And then Aubrey trying to push up on Eyebrows. Like, he has a girlfriend, bitch - dart your eyeballs elsewhere. And then also she was getting up to some shenanigans with Max Greenfield. And they acknowledge she's fucking Max because she's insecure and when she's around him she's back to feeling nineteen again?? Okay, I guess. You're a grown woman with a full-time job and a college degree who makes her own money but okay I guess. And then Max is a mess because he's like a philosophy major, but it's like, no one told you to do that. Also he's playing like a ~blunt~, rude character. A tellin' it like it is type. Like okay you can talk all that shit because you have all white friends, but try doing that to like one latina chick. Like, try talking out of your fucking mouth the way you did to Jane Levy to some like Colombian bitch and watch your glasses get jammed behind your fucking eyeballs, like come on, this person doesn't get to exist in real life unless he like never leaves his house. For sure, he would have been humbled by several individuals, long ago. But everyone in the movie is just like, "[Whatever his name is], stop it! That's enough blah blah". Like, if any nigga in the movie needed to be punched, Nate, it was him. And he was hella rude to Nate, too! How are you gonna punch sweetheart little nothing Alex over Max Greenfield's huge obnoxious face?? Hello!!

So whatever, this movie ends after Alex walks out to where Nate crashes that car. He's like writing and shit. Alex tried to apologize and Nate is like ld j rirmoe,e,kenej. And then they drive back to the house and it becomes clear the car Nate fucked up was Eyebrows? Maybe? Isn't he rich? Why is he driving that shitty car? Well, I guess his lack of reaction to it being fucked up is...a rich persony sort of reaction, I guess? Everyone gets ready to leave, for some reason. Like, what was the plan here? To come up to Alex's place real quick to chill and just like get a thumbs up from him that he was good? Lol, like, okay. I mean, Nate decides to stay? So? That's good? But also can I have that movie where they eventually fuck? Like Nate gets writer's block again and Alex kindly offers to ~~~~unblock~~~ him????? loljk @ me asking for a sequel to this travesty. 

They make Jane Levy take a group pic of them. Sigh @ Jane's character. Sigh @ them taking a picture to remind them of this horrible, nightmare fucking weekend. Sigh @ this movie. Sigh @ being alive.