The Hollars (2016)
Directed by John Krasinski
Aspiring New York City artist John Hollar returns to his Middle America hometown on the eve of his mother’s brain surgery. Joined by his girlfriend Rebecca, eight months pregnant with their first child, John is forced to navigate the crazy world he left behind.
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And just like that, John goes full “Garden State.”
A gooey morass of indie-movie clichés, the wacky-family dramedy “The Hollars” marks yet another egregiously cutesy attempt to rekindle that “Garden State” magic.
From its first moments, when a grown son fights with his mother for morning bathroom time and finally resorts to an unsavory solution involving an orange juice pitcher and steady aim, “The Hollars” announces that it intends to be another “quirky” dysfunctional family dramedy in the tradition of the fine 2005 film “ Junebug ” and its far less gifted but more eager to please siblings, “ Garden State ” and “ Little Miss Sunshine .”
Written by Jim Strouse, Kaminski’s sophomore directorial project (after “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men”) is a “Garden State”-like indie — neurotic characters coming together around an illness or a death, with the journey of a back-in-town denizen providing dramatic thrust.
Garden State, meet Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
With a wind of lightly plucked guitars and melancholic folk melodies at its back, The Hollars delivers small-town family drama in the familiar Sundance-indie mode that’s remained ubiquitous since films like Garden State (2004), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and the like rose to prominence.