Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Great Film overall

good back-story, and good acting

The Chumscrubber unfolds in a rather beautiful suburban locale somewhere in America, the kind with good hot weather and large detached whitewashed houses in which your bog standard family units operate amidst their impeccable lawns and smiley-smiley relationships with other neighbours. The very final shot of the film is a violent pull out of one the suburban streets, in which this sort of set up is established to exist, so as to reveal a specific shape of something all these streets and towns form when looking at it from afar. The idea that the whole set up is conforming to form a shape; an item no one living down there has any knowledge of and yet is technically right under their noses is apparent, that idea of lots of different traits and attitudes combining in order to manifest into an unnatural form. Such is the way in The Chumscrubber, a 2005 film from Israeli-born writer/director Arie Posin exploring the shallowness and vacuity of contemporary living in a warm, sunny American locale as people with successful jobs and promising kids are placed under a microscope of bleak comedy twinned with an aesthetic of realism blurred with surrealism.The film centres around a young, disillusioned male named Dean (Bell) and his relationship with his distanced family on one strand with his dangerous and temperamental relationship with a small gang of other youths, lead by the drug-dealing sociopath Billy (Chatwin), on the other. Dean's family are initially presented to us by way of some interestingly alienating camera work, creating an entrenched sense on the audience's behalf that we're meant to share with the lead and how he views these people. Dean's father, a successful author and psychiatric doctor named Bill (Fichtner), has his back to us in a relatively long and unbroken take as we waltz around the family's kitchen and living room area; the little brother fixated on a shallow and vacuous computer game, the wife/mother on the phone speaking about whatever suggesting whiffs of domesticisation; while Bill weaves in and out of the place with his back to the camera, it's the closest we get to a form of identification of him.The film has that disconnected sensibility about it, that parents and their children are never quite on the same plain, indeed a police officer's son is essentially kidnapped very early on but doesn't quite realise until much later; other parents allow their problems, trivial things such as making sure order amidst who is in ownership of various pots and pans amongst neighbours is intact furthering that sense of depressing domesticisation as the vacuous gushing over the purchasing of dresses in locals stores hammer home the point. When we observe the self-obsessed and self-indulgent attitudes these adults possess, we realise this sort of disconnection and emptiness can, supposedly, lead only to bullying; drug-dealing and knife play amongst kids as the one relationship between young and old family members of any note sees Dean's father exploit him and his psychological situation in drawing on example of him in his books and experimenting through him the effects of certain pills. But around all of this, we are invited into looking at this interesting, intrinsic little narrative Posin has weaved linked to Dean and his ongoing feud with Billy plus his cohorts: a deputy in Lee (Taylor-Pucci) and the teenage femme-fatale of sorts Crystal (Belle), of whom have brought into their possession young Charlie (Curtis) whom they have mistaken for Dean's brother, who's also called Charlie and played by Macaulay's younger brother, Rory Culkin.Posin's integrating of this plot around all of this substance is well crafted, here's a film that renders most of the adults childish and infantile in their actions and behaviours but the manner in which the adolescents behave see them strut around as if they were fully grown men and women living a life of potential sleaze, crime and terror. The comparison calls to mind a grossly underwhelming 2006 independent American film named Brick, a film that fed off similar ideas not purely limited to genre, in its providing us with child leads and adult supporting characters but arriving with one too many frustrations to truly get involved. The reason for the gang of three doing what they did in abducting Charlie was with the assumption he was related to Dean and would be used as an item of threat to force Dean into attaining a stash of drugs in a young man named Troy's room. Troy was a recent victim of suicide and Dean's only friend; himself occupying a room or living quarter significantly cut off from the rest of his parents' house enforcing that alienated feel. From here, a narrative of intrigue and pot boiling unravels around these youths as sub-plots to do with adults played by a pretty meaty supporting cast and their own issues unravel as well.Posin's direction of the cast he's overseeing is wonderful, getting the best out of his predominantly young string of acting talent playing some rather tough roles wonderfully well as the elder members of the cast succeed in essentially 'dumbing-down' their characters so as to enhance that prominent distinction between younger and elder. The Chumscrubber is not a shallow film, it is a film about shallow people living a shallow existence and the hollowness of life in this would-be idyllic set up, the kind of which turns out to be truly ugly once on the inside; and I shall watch out for further projects from the man in the future.

I had the opportunity to see this film before it was released at a special screening. It was a benefit from my film course at college. Anyways none of knew what to expect, so we all went in completely blind to the what it was about. Afterwards one of the people from the studio interviewed us. I'll tell you what i told him: it was very thought provoking, had a very good cast, and was directed well. The story was great. It was very "Donnie Darko-Esquire" Since i saw it me and my girlfriend have watched it, everyone i play it for loves it. Great film! Most people love the story. There are however some un-answered questions much like the latter fllm mentioned. But again it is very thought provoking!

It's been a while since a movie has offered me as many special moments of beauty and truth. While the film as been condemned by some critics and viewers as trite, contrived, pretentious garbage, I sense there is an underlying irony to these assertions - only pretentious people take pride in convicting art as pretentious. There are lessons to be learnt from this film, if only you drop your own pretences and accept that the message in this film is not only relevant, but challenging and on the whole, enlightening. It's easy to denounce Ralph Fiennes character as overcooked pretentious fluff, if you don't take a moment to really accept the actions of his character and learn some real and valuable lessons about observing the world in the way its meant to be observed, without fear or shame. The scene where Justin Chatwin's character gets hit by a car and spots a plane flying overhead is not only amusing, but deeply tragic - essentially it's about a kid so enslaved by his insecurities he loses his dream, his ambition, his one love. There are so many of these thought-provoking moments that i could go on all day, but at the end of the day, this film is an ode to enlightenment and a revelation that regardless of the questionability of our demeanor, we are all simply victims of the civilised world and undeserved of judgement or condemnation.Good stuff.

This movie was good, the acting was incredible. at parts it was slow, but it had enough twists to keep you interested. The ending, although it told you/showed you what happened after the events that transpired during the movie, was to short. I would have liked to have seen more than just a kiss betweenst the two. Show the two having a fun time together as a couple would. The basis of the name of the movie was pretty weak. But the characters were good. This movie is just another reason why Camilla Belle is my favorite actress. She fit her character very well. some parts of the movie seemed pointless and unnecessary the movie, like when the drugs were put in the hot dish it didn't seem relevant to the events in the movie if you ask me. Their was one scene in the movie that had a really good point, it was when Camilla said, don't act like like someone your not, if u do that long enough you'll forget that your acting. It is a true statement that people should remember.