For example, Donald has a jealous streak, but the source of his jealousy is open for interpretation.
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Within that frame, the movie goes deep, hinting at a richer back story and giving us just enough to wonder about Donald’s unconscious drives. “Donald Cried” touches on that, as it explores its main subject, the phenomenon of leaving home and coming back, and what it feels like for those who stay and those who return. There is a mystery to these early relationships that the movie captures: Though the friendships of youth are often just the result of proximity - being in the same class, living on the same block - your childhood friends end up knowing the real, unvarnished and eternal you. Peter was a cool guy in high school, and Donald was a victim of his practical jokes - and even cried on one occasion. This is not someone who can function in the world - and that’s not funny.Īs everyone knows who has ever been to a high school reunion, power relationships do not change between old acquaintances. It’s all absurd and enjoyable, and yet to spend one minute in Donald’s company is to realize something is wrong with him. Donald talks and talks, and most of what he says is ludicrous, and some of it is unconsciously insulting. Most of the film consists of conversations between Peter and Donald, as they go about the day, and the dialogue is funny, but without punch lines or even laugh lines. When Matthew McConaughey won the best actor Academy Award nearly four years. So we never know exactly what to make of him, or to know whether we or Peter should be comfortable in his company. So this list of the worst movies of 2017 represents various varieties of wrong. He acts like a boy, but underneath the facade, you sense that he has a man’s anger. He is smiling and ingratiating, but he has a pornography poster on his bedroom wall that’s weird and disturbing. Peter just wants to borrow $100 to get through the day, but Donald is so needy and so unrestrained in his joy at seeing him that Peter has no choice but to hang out with the guy - all day.Īvedisian, who co-wrote and directed the movie, plays Donald, who is a singular mix of alarming and amusing. And to make matters more hard to manage, he loses his wallet.Īs a result, he needs the help of his childhood friend, Donald, who, though well into his 30s, still lives with his mother in the house that he grew up in. The ground is already covered with snow, and it’s snowing some more. As we meet him, though, he is performing a family duty: He arrives in Warwick, R.I., where he grew up, to dispose of his recently deceased grandmother’s property. It takes place over the course of one 24-hour day and follows Peter (Jesse Wakeman), who has achieved success in New York, working in the financial sector.
And it observes an aspect of life that most of us know, from one angle or the other, while making us appreciate both sides of the question. It is funny in an absurdist way, but it’s heartfelt, too. “Donald Cried” is a strange title for a strange and good independent movie that somehow does a number of things simultaneously. Critic Mick LaSalle likened it to Roberto Rossellini’s Open City, a movie that was filmed on the streets of Rome in the immediate wake of Nazi occupation.