"Vengeance" - Review

Pompous dickbag columnist Ben Manalowitz (BJ Novak) lives the life of a carefree playboy bachelor in New York, exceedingly proud of his "Blue Check Mark" on Twitter. He receives a phone call one evening as he spends time with a conquest of his, tearfully informing him that his girlfriend Abilene (Lio Tipton) has died. He's confused, who is Abilene? He frantically searches his phone for any clues, and comes across a casual fling. Not wanting to be rude, he agrees to come to Texas for the funeral, where he meets her family: bullish brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook), her mother Sharon (J. Smith Cameron), her savvy film maker sister Paris (Isabelle Amara), her wannabe celebrity sister Kansas City (Dove Cameron) and her little brother "El Stupido" Shaw (Eli Abrams Bickel). Awkwardly trying to fit in, Ben is told emphatically by Ty that this wasn't an overdose, that Abilene never touched drugs, and that, as her boyfriend he is part of the family and they should team up to get vengeance on the sick sons of bitches who did this. The Texas way. Ben, oily weasel that he is, realises that he may have a story here. His proudcer (Issa Rae) agrees, and so this city boy begins to lie and weasel his way into the lives of a grieving family, to seek vengeance for a girl that none of them may have actually known at all...

Apologies for the longer than normal synopsis there, but there is more to this one than the simple tale of "revenge". From that setup, we get something which goes under the skin: a fish-out-of-water, "Dear Evan Hanson"-esque tale of an utterly pretentious wanker shitbag using a grieving family and his tenuous connection to their dead child as a way to wax lyrical and try to get a Pulitzer prize with his shit podcast. It's actually quite good stuff, including a very funny awkward eulogy at Abilene's funeral he makes up on the fly, Ty mistaking Ben's reticence for grief, and then punctuated by Ben being allowed into the family's home and Abilene's room to stay, where he and the audience are reminded that this is a real person with real wants, needs, dreams and loves. It's an effective gut punch. The film then has fun with the chalk and cheese of Ben and the Shaw family values (my favourite Barry Sonnenfeld film), as well as how Ben's prejudices are unfounded and the Shaw family are smarter and more savvy than he thinks. It's cathartic watching this asshole learn and fall out with the populace, getting things wrong and makes a fool of himself. Because this is an insidiously shitty thing he is doing, and the movie has a few swipes at his profession and the need of him and others to view these people as "characters" rather than people.
Novak has his own voice, a rather verbose and wordy one, which shines through with the Ben character, but unfortunately trickles through into the other characters: who will also have large wordy grandiose speeches on the nature of vengeance and man. Granted some of it is him getting through to them, accompanied by some truly spectacular cinematography in parts (a scene in a car where he casts aside his pretentions and just embraces beauty of the world around him with no caveats is one which stands out), but it can feel a tad jarring.
The film could have benefitted from being darker, in my eyes, going for a more "Red Rocket" rawness or grit to everything, and the central mystery of who was involved with Abilene is easy to figure out (it's the one character we are introduced to with a fairly big role but nothing to do in the plot otherwise), but when it wants to get down to the brass tacks of what it's goig for, it's pretty on the money. It juggles the opioid epidemic and wealth in the US, and the plight of the working man, and has something of a fresh take on revenge.
It could have been darker, but it is a darkly funny debut. Lio Tipton is underused.