Butler's Cinema Scene

Jenny Slate, Abby Quinn

“LANDLINE”  My rating: B-

93 minutes | MPAA rating: R

With “Obvious Child,” her 2014 feature writing/directing debut, Gillian Robespierre achieved the near impossible, delivering a bittersweet comedy/drama about a young woman who opts for an abortion.

Her sophomore effort, “Landline,” is equally ambitious, if not quite so successful.

The topic here is infidelity and its repercussions.  There’s some angst tossed around, yes, but this mostly low-keyed comedy keeps its eye on notion that sometimes marital trauma ends up being better for everyone. (Robespierre has said in interviews that both she and co-writer Elizabeth Holm saw their parents’ marriages break up because of adultery…but that in the long run everyone was better off for it.)

Set in the pre-cell phone ’90s,  the film centers on the four members of the Quinn family in New York City.

Father Alan (John Turturro) is a advertising copywriter who really wants to turn out great poetry and prose.  Mother Pat (Edie Falco) has her hands full with their 17-year-old daughter Ali (Abby Quinn), a bad-tempered rebel specializing in ditching classes, smoking dope and experimenting with sex.

Their oldest daughter, Dana (Jenny Slade, star of “Obvious Child”), has already moved out and is living with her fiancé. She seems to be as straight and uptight as Ali is angry and adventurous; when uncomfortable Dana erupts in helium giggles. Concerned that her life’s turning into a long slog, she suggests to fiance Ben (Jay Duplass) that they have sex during a hike in the woods. All they get for the effort is a bad case of poison ivy.

Abby Quinn, Edie Falco and Jenny Slate

The plot is kicked into gear by Ali’s discovery on the family computer of a file of erotic love poems, written by her dad and dedicated to someone called “C.”

This revelation only confirms Ali’s dim view of the adult world. She tells big sister Dana of her discovery, and their shared concern over this betrayal of their mother unexpectedly bonds the two siblings (they’re at least 10 years apart in age). They begin stalking their father, trying to discover the identity of this mystery woman…if, indeed, she’s a real person and not some product of his imagination.

But the idea that Daddy is cheating on Mommy also pushes the conservative Dana to examine her own life.  Upshot: she has an affair with an old college boyfriend (Finn Wittrock).

“Landline” is remarkably nonjudgmental.  None of the characters — including the adulterous Alan  and Dana — are bad people.  All have understandable reasons for their behavior, and the joy of the film is their growing awareness that life goes on and that emotional setbacks can make us stronger, better human beings.

The film is often amusing but rarely laugh-out-loud funny…Robespierre is making a career specialty of the uneasy space between a chortle and a sob.

| Robert W. Butler