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With: David Krumholtz, Martin Starr, Olivia Thirlby, Jocelyn DeBoer, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Stephen Root, Macon Blair, Luxy Banner, Andrew Bujalski, Mona Lee Fultz
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Written by: Bob Byington
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Directed by: Bob Byington
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MPAA Rating: NR
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Running Time: 76
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Date: 03/29/2024
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Prof Limits
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Despite the number of amusing performers in the cast, and a selection of humor-rich situations that could have provided laughs, Bob Byington's comedy Lousy Carter is more dreary and unpleasant than it is funny.
"Lousy" Carter (David Krumholtz) — he received the nickname as a kid for being bad at sports — is given an alarming diagnosis. He has a terminal illness and has only six months left to live. He currently works as a professor, teaching a graduate course on The Great Gatsby, but he wants to finish a long-languishing animated film, based on a Vladimir Nabokov novel.
He gets the idea to invite his pretty student Gail (Luxy Banner) to be a model for the film, with the vain hope that maybe he can seduce her. He's also having an affair with the wife (Jocelyn DeBoer) of his best friend and fellow professor Kaminsky (Martin Starr).
Meanwhile, his mother passes away, and he must arrange a funeral, which brings his estranged sister (Trieste Kelly Dunn) to town. Throughout all this, he sometimes meets with his ex-girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby) to ruminate on his past.
Lousy Carter is never flat-out terrible. Passing by uneventfully at only 76 minutes, it has a watchable quality. We're just interested enough to stay tuned in to see what terrible thing will happen next. The biggest laughs come when Krumholtz's women co-stars level vicious barbs at him, such as Thirlby (correctly) calling him a "baby man," or Dunn turning one of his seemingly innocent comments into something perverted.
The main problem seems to be centered on the Carter character. He's a "nebbish" (defined as "a timid unfortunate simpleton"), much like the ones that Woody Allen, Albert Brooks, and Noah Baumbach are fond of, the difference being that he's pretty much despicable, with no redeeming qualities.
Of course, it's possible to mine comedy gold from a character like that, but Lousy Carter just doesn't seem to be trying. He's a creepy cheater (who says he doesn't even feel guilty about it), self-obsessed, and doesn't even seem to have anything to say about Gatsby. He's lackadaisically presented as is. Most viewers will want to say, "no thanks."
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